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THOUGHTS ON MEN 



AND THINGS 



RIVINGTONS 

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THOUGHTS ON MEN 
AND THINGS 



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By ANGELINA 0USHINGTON / 

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f ^i jesfs prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it"' 

Love's Labour's Lost 



R1VINGTONS 

Emtifmt, ©jrforB, antr Camfcrtirgc 

1869 

[New Edition] 






" Pictures like these, dear Madam, to design, 
Asks no firm hand, and no wierring line; 
Some wand ring tone lies, some reflected light. 
Some flying stroke alone can hit them right : 
For how should equal colours do tJie knack ? 
Chameleons who can paint in white and black? " 

Pope. Moral Essays. 

" Although some things are too serious, solemn, or sacred, to be turned into 
ridicule, yet the abuses of them are certainly not ; since it is allowed that cor- 
ruptions in Religion, Politics, and Law, may be p7*oper topics for this kind 
of Satire."— Swift. 



I 



CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTORY I 

CROQUET 13 

ON GOING TO TOWN, BECAUSE EVERY ONE GOES, YOU 

know 34 

the reading party 47 

WOMAN'S WORK 62 

PHILOSOPHERS AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY 73 

RITUALISM 90 

CHRISTMAS-TIDE ICX) 

DANCING 127 

FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 137 

ON BISHOPS 156 

ON THE FINER FEELINGS OF OUR NATURE 173 

ON A NEW MODE OF DOING PENANCE • . 190 



TO THE PUBLIC 

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION 

A/FAMMiY will have it that I have injured my 
prospects by writing a book. She says it is 
universally acknowledged that every one who writes a 
book is either really clever, or wishes to be thought clever ; 
and that as clever girls, or, what is much the same 
thing, girls supposed to be clever, are far less marketable 
than girls who affect to be simple and ignorant, although 
they may be, and indeed generally are, just the reverse ; 
therefore her proposition is true, namely, that I have 
injured my prospects by publishing my u Thoughts on 
Men and Things." If this is really so, of course it is a 
very sad state of things ; but I contend it is. or at any 



viii PREFACE TO 






rate ought not to be the case, because, as I have urged 
in the original Preface to the Book, and also in stronger 
terms in the Introductory Essay, / don't pretend to be 
clever. I only wish to show that I am not so silly as 
people generally suppose all the young women of the 
Gushington family must be. 

I confess I am afraid Mamma is not very far wrong- 
after all, for I have myself observed that many young men, 
eligible too some of them, with whom I used to be on 
most friendly terms, fight quite shy of me now that I am 
known to be an authoress. They all seem to think I 
intend to pit them into a book, a fate the mere apprehension 
of which turns the hearts of the bravest men to water. For 
instance, the other day at a large croquet party young 
Topsawyer and I were getting on beautifully, notwith- 
standing that his stock of ideas is decidedly limited, 
when that odious girl, Honoria Ringdove, tripped up to 
me (or I should say waddled, for one can't walk decently, 
much less trip, in boots three sizes too small for one, 
and heels two inches high), and in her usual mincing . 
style that is enough to drive a sensible woman wild, 
cried, "It is your turn, dearest ; we are all waiting for 
you : but I suppose you clever people who write books 



THE THIRD EDITION ix 

are above paying attention to the game. What a capital 
place for the study of character a croquet ground must 
be ! Don't you think so, Mr. Topsawyer?" 

" Nonsense, love," I said, "how you do rattle on!" 
Spiteful creature ! I could have pinched her till she was 
black and blue all over. 

You should have seen young Topsawyer. His coun- 
tenance fell in a moment. "She will put me into a 
book/' he thought, "and what a fool I shall look then." 
From that moment he deserted me completely; and 
although there was a dance afterwards, he never once 
during the whole evening asked me to be his partner, 
an omission rendered all the more pointed by the cir- 
cumstance that he danced twice with Helen, and three 
times with Kate, nearly turning their silly heads, poor 
dears ! 

If eligible young men would but understand that they 
need not be frightened of me, as I do not intend to put 
them into a book, I should be more hopeful for the 
future/ As it is, Mamma, with Kate and Helen in pro- 
spective, is becoming quite anxious about me, although, 
as I have often told her, she need not distress herself, 
since I am not in the least hurry to settle ; not but 



x PREFACE TO 

what I think every family of girls ought by rights to go 
off in rotation, and as I am the eldest my turn would 
come first, but of course that I could not help. 

My principal object, therefore, in writing a Preface 
to this edition of my book, is to disabuse people of the 
notion that I am a clever girl. I am not. George often 
says I am very stupid, and only this morning he called 
me a ridiculous little goose, though that, I admit, is 
flying to the other extreme. 

But I also wish to impress upon you the fact that I am 
not, as some persons have erroneously supposed, a Girl 
of the Period, as she is popularly represented. I am 
obliged, it is true, to dress as other people do, not to 
appear singular. I used, in the days of moderate-sized 
chignons, to be proud of the circumstance that mine was 
all real. Now my frizzette alone is as big as my head, 
and as for the hair that covers it, there is no pretence 
about it, it is false of course ; it does not even match my 
own in colour : indeed, I purposely wear a dark chignon, 
in order to set off my own light hair in front to greater 
advantage. I look upon it as a mere ornament, ridicu- 
lous, but fashionable. The short walking-dress of the 
period I consider to be the most sensible part of modern 



THE THIRD EDITION xi 

costume ; and if people choose to carry their umbrellas 
slung by their side instead of in their hands, let them. 

After all, it is not the dress that is in fault. There 
have been far more outre fashions in times past. It is 
the absurdity of mixing manners, chignons, the Grecian 
bend, morals, and umbrellas together, as if they were 
mutually dependent. I am thoroughly sick of the 
twaddle that has been written about the Girl of the 
Period. It is very evident to me that the writer who 
originated the caricature can never have studied mankind 
or womankind either. We do not pretend to be clever, 
but at any rate we are not such fools as some men would 
make us out to be. 

One more observation, and I shall have done. I do 
not wish this little literary effort of mine to be regarded, 
as I fear it has been, as a mere comic book. It is true 
it was not written for a set purpose, to support any 
particular theory, or even to supply a want — if it had, it 
would doubtless have been a failure; and that it has 
not proved a failure the fact that I am writing the 
Preface to a Third Edition is ample proof. But although 
it may be discursive, and at times wanting in point, I 
do not wish it to be considered as purely light literature, 



xii PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION 

to be skimmed and thrown on one side. If it is worth 
reading at all, it is worth reading carefully, a remark, by- 
the-bye, that applies to this Preface. Before you begin 
the book, read the Prefaces. Many people never dream 
of reading the Preface to a book, deeming it waste of 
time. This is a great mistake. An author would not 
take the trouble to write a Preface if he did not wish to 
have it read. Remember this, therefore, and read both 
the Prefaces, if you would comprehend the real drift of 
the " Thoughts on Men and Things " of 

Yours affectionately, 

ANGELINA GUSHINGTON. 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 

TF the Preface did not appear to be a necessary part of 
every book, I should be very much tempted to omit 
it, for as far as my experience goes, prefaces are generally 
stupid to read, and, as I now find out, for the first time, 
difficult to write. 

However a Preface is so far useful that it gives one an 
opportunity of explaining to the reader certain matters 
connected with the book which could not well appear in 
the text itself. In the first place, I have written this 
collection of Essays with the object of removing the 
reproach of silliness which has of late attached itself to 
the name which I feel it an honour to bear. Many of 
my readers may perhaps have noticed that when any 
individual gives, for the benefit of the public, an enter- 



xiv PREFACE TO 

tainment of a comic nature, consisting, it may be, of 
sketches of character, he will be pretty certain when he 
caricatures some silly, unnatural, and foolish girl, to 
name her Miss Gushington, not seldom Miss Angelina 
Gushington (see Essay On Going to Town, &c.) ; also, 
that when a comic writer has something more than 
usually absurd to say, or an observation more than 
ordinarily stupid to make, he embodies the same in a 
letter purporting to come from a Miss Angelina 
Gushington, and sends it to Punch, congratulating 
himself the while, I have no doubt, upon the bright- 
ness of his wit. Now this is not only annoying to me, 
but unaccountable too. 

There are a large family of us certainly, that is to say, 
we have a number of relatives who bear the name of 
Gushington, but they are all, for the most part, easy- 
going matter-of-fact people, not given to absurdities. I 
admit that a very distant relative, the Honourable 
Impulsia Gushington.. made herself very ridiculous some 
years ago, by insisting upon travelling alone to the 
Pyramids, and going up the Nile, or down the Nile (I 
never know whether to say up or down a river), and 
accordingly coming, as she might have expected, to 



THE FIRST EDITION xv 

general grief, but her conduct alone would not have 
sufficed to bring this ridicule upon the family. 

What is the cause of it I should like to know ? There 
is nothing comic about my name. On the contrary, 
when one reflects that one might have been born a Smith, 
a Dobbs, or a Muggins, one feels quite thankful that 
one has been blessed with so euphonious a name as 
Gushington. And as for Angelina, can any thing be 
sweeter 1 

Unable, therefore, to discover the reason for the mis- 
use that has been made of my name, I determined, as I 
have said, to write the following Essays, just to show 
that although I do not pretend to be clever (see Intro- 
ductory Essay), I am certainly not silly, and have, to 
some extent, my wits about me; and I do hope that 
the publication of this little Volume will disabuse people 
of the notion that the young women of the great 
Gushington family must necessarily be silly and ridicu- 
lous creatures. 

The Essays that make up this book have, with the 
exception of one, already appeared in the Light Blue, a 
Cambridge University Magazine, but, in the reprint, 
considerable additions have been made to many of them. 



xvi PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 

The Introductory Essay was written originally as a 
letter to the Editor of the above-named Magazine, which 
accounts for the epistolary form which it still, to a certain 
extent, retains. 

It has been objected that in some of the Essays, 
notably in the one entitled Christmas-tide, I have 
displayed an acquaintance with facts (as the after-dinner 
conversation of gentlemen, for instance), that could not 
come under the personal observation of a lady. To 
this I reply, that in happier times, when mutual hearts 
beat with responsive throbs, it might be possible for one 
of the other sex to divulge to — to — , but is it neces- 
sary to revive melancholy remembrances in the lacerated 
breast of the mourner'? (see Woman's Work.) Surely 
if I say, a little bird, that will suffice. 

ANGELINA GUSHINGTON 



INTRODUCTORY 

A /T Y cousin George has just been telling me that you have 
*-*■*• published a new University Magazine at Cambridge, 
and I think it such a nice idea ; but it is exactly what I always 
said, do you know, when mamma would persist in calling 
dear George and his college friends lazy and good-for-nothing, 
that I was sure young men at Oxford and Cambridge were 
always improving their minds and that sort of thing, and- 
I think it shows I was right — don't you, now 1 And as for - 
calling George lazy, I am sure he is not, and I pity him very 
much, poor fellow ; for, do you know, he worked so hard at; 
his mathematics, and rackets, and sculls, and classics, and 
fours, and fives, and paleys, and won all sorts of prizes, silver 
cups and things, that when he was to be examined, the doc- 
tors found he was suffering from atrophy of the heart, pro- 
duced by continually leaning against an Oxford desk, and he 
was obliged to undergo a dreadful surgical operation, called 
" scratching " I think, which prevented him from trying 
for the " poll " or whatever it is called, or I am quite sure he 
would have got it, for he is so clever, and writes such funny 
verses, you don't know. 
Well, as I was saying, George was telling me — for he is 

B 



2 INTRODUCTORY 

down here now reading with Mr. Minikin, our dull, stupid 
curate, who would send me to sleep every Sunday, I really 
do believe, if I did not contrive to keep my attention fixed 
during sermon- time by looking about me and remarking 
what other girls have got on — and precious guys some of 
them make of themselves, I can tell you. And this reminds 
me to say how very kind the dons were to poor George, 
although he never will admit it, the ungrateful thing ! for 
one night when he was reading very hard (this was after that 
horrid scratching) he thought he would go to the Master's 
house and ask him the meaning of a Greek word (sounding 
something like oinownai), never thinking, so engrossed was 
he in his studies, how fast the time had slipped away, and 
that the poor old gentleman would be in bed at three o'clock 
in the morning : so after knocking at the door for a long time, 
one of the servants came down, who of course could not give 
him the required information, although he must have been 
better educated than servants usually are, and more civil too. 
for he talked about the plain English of it, and insisted that 
dear George should not sit up to study any more, but should 
go to bed at once, and quite right too, I think, although 
George was very reluctant to quit his books. However, the 
upshot of the matter was, that next morning the Master sent 
for him (to breakfast, I suppose), and after giving him his 
opinion upon the subject most clearly and fully, noticed how 
pale, or, to use his own words, seedy he looked from over- 
work, and suggested in the kindest manner possible that he 
should study down in the country, where he could get plenty 
of fresh air, and not in nasty little pokey rooms as I know 
George's were, for I was in them last June, although I had 



IXTRQDUCTORY 3 

difficulty enough with my crinoline in getting up tlie narrow 
staircase. Now was not that considerate of the dear old 
man ? I do so love him. But then, you know, all the young 
men are so fond of the Heads, as they are called, and look 
upon them quite as fathers. I am told. Indeed, to hear the 
affectionate way in which George speaks of the college 
authorities generally, almost brings tears into my eyes. 

But I am wandering from my subject, as I always do, like 
a giddy thing as I am. George, I say. was telling me about 
this new magazine, The Light Blue, which is a most charm- 
ing name. I think, and such a becoming colour too ; suits my 
complexion exactly, for you must know I am a blonde, and 
have just the golden-tinted hair so much the fashion. Isn't 
that nice I u Nonsense, George/' There ! he has been say- 
ing he supposes as I am so fond of the colour I shall make 
curl papers of your magazine, as if I were so foolish as to 
ine it would be printed on blue paper, or should wear 
curls either, of all things in the world, when it takes me an 
hour every morning to make up my chignon (my own hair) 
so as to prevent the stuffing from showing. And now that I 
have mentioned the word chignon, I will le: you and your 
young friends into a secret respecting that article, so that you 
may be able to discover whether a girl wears one of her own 
hair or somebody else's. A natural chignon is never so 
smooth as a false one, because, try as much as she will, the 
neatest and cleverest young-lady's maid can never prevent a 
few short hairs from sticking out here and there : for although 
they may not show at first, they will become visible to a cer- 
tainty before the evening is out, especially after dancing. 
Now, the false chignons are made of hair all of the same 

E 2 



4 INTRODUCTORY 

length, and secured so firmly as always to present a smooth 
surface, although I have known some girls purposely pull 
two or three of the hairs out and cut them off short, so that 
their chignons may seem natural, w 7 hich I call very wicked, 
and what I never should do were I obliged to wear false hair, 
which, thank goodness, I am not. Then, again, false chig- 
nons, especially of my coloured hair (which is very expensive 
to buy), are rarely an exact match with the wearer's own hair, 
so that to disguise the difference they are frequently covered 
with a fine net, which is sometimes ornamented with gold 
spangles ; so whenever you see one covered in that way you 
may be certain it is false, because no girl who had hair 
enough of her own to make a chignon would ever think of 
hiding it under a net. Dear me ! what a trouble one's hair 
is to one. I am sure sometimes, before a party, my hair has 
been on my mind for hours together, and that too when I 
have been driven almost distracted for fear the dressmaker 
should not send home my dress in time to be tried on pro- 
perly. 

You should see me before I go to bed at night, with a 
dozen hair weavers on each side of my head ; I am sure no one 
would recognize me, I look such an object : but then you 
know a girl who goes into society must not appear singular, 
and if my hair is not naturally wavy, I must make it so by 
artificial means. 

Here I am " off the line " again, as George says (I told 
you he was so clever). But the fact is I am so nervous, what 
with writing to a gentleman (for the first time in my life ex- 
cept when poor dear , but that's not to the point) and 

the thought that these " words, idle words" (I dote upon 



INTRO D UCTOR Y f> 

Shakespeare), will most likely be read all over the world, that 
I have scarcely presence of mind left to spell properly, much 
less write grammatically. 

Well, to come to the point, I have been thinking (girls do 
think sometimes, I assure you; that there are many subjects 
upon which a fellow like myself, I mean a young lady, could 
write in a conversational kind of style without being con- 
sidered learned, which I have no wish to be at all, for nothing 
injures a girl's prospects so much as a rumour that she is 
ever so little of a ' blue.' Gentlemen always seem to me to 
what is termed " fight-shy n of any lady, especially any young 
lady, who appears to know what is meant by such things as 
statistics, glut of raw material, drain of gold, budget, com- 
mercial prosperity, reciprocity, revenue, &c. &c 3 so I beg to 
tell you that I do not know in the least what these things 
mean, only I recollect their names from hearing papa go on 
about them when any of his city friends come down from 
town to visit us ; and from the stupid and prosy way in 
which they talk of them, I think it would be a very good 
thing if Mr. Gladstone, or whoever is the proper person to do 
it, would abolish them altogether. 

Oh ! I forgot politics, another dreadful thing, that no girl 
who is in the matrimonial market, and has any respect for 
herself, ought to know any thing about ; and I was quite 
shocked once when Clara Dashwood, who is a great friend of 
mine, said she was glad the American war was over, because 
it was so good for the poor blacks, or something of that 
kind, but I was too horrified to listen : besides, I never can 
recollect those things : but then she is a dear creature, and 
such a fright 'all the colour that should be in her cheeks 



6 INTRODUCTORY 

settled in her nose, you know, which never adds to a person's 
appearance), so that it did not much matter after all. 

When any gentleman asks me if I read the paper, or what 
I think of such a question, I begin to giggle at once (I prac- 
tise a lady-like giggle before a glass, for I have a beautiful 
set of nice even teeth), and say, Oh dear no ! of course not, 
and that it would be of no use if I did, for I could not 
understand it, and that I think newspapers are dreadfully 
stupid things : so then he is sure to say, that at all events he 
supposes I read the births, deaths, and marriages, and the 
fashions, whereat I giggle again, and say, O yes, to be sure, 
but I do not call that reading the newspaper, and I should 
not think he did either, which gives him an opportunity, 
if he is a man of tact and sense, of taking advantage of such 
suggestive topics and launching out into more interesting 
themes. Moreover, my experience of gentlemen tells me 
that they rather prefer a girl who admits (with a pretty 
simper) that she does not know this, or can't understand 
that, or that such and such subjects are far too deep for her. 
They regard her with a kind of complacent satisfaction, as a 
nice, innocent, guileless young thing whom they could teach 
and mould at their own sweet will. A girl who has 
much common sense, and betrays her possession of that 
undesirable commodity, they appear to detest and to be 
half afraid of. In fact, I believe many men get the credit 
of being wise and learned who in reality are not so, and that 
they are afraid of marrying sensible and clever girls, for feat 
they should discover the truth. 

So I hope you will be very careful not to allow your young- 
men at Cambridge to fancy that because I have a turn for 






* INTRODUCTORY 7 

scribbling, therefore I am one of your sensible strong-minded 
women who are always professing such philanthropic motives 
with respect to their own sex ; for I am just the reverse, or at 
all events wish to appear so, and feel far more interest in the 
welfare of the stronger sex than in that of the wea.ker. How- 
ever, you must not run away with the notion that I have nor. 
my wits about me, or am not what the world calls well 
educated On the contrary, I assure you that I am con- 
sidered sharp for a girl of my age, and have undergone the 
usual course of training that one receives at a first-class 
boarding-school ; geography, French, Italian, not exactly 
to speak it, you know, which I regret, as it is a very pretty- 
language and suits my voice, which is naturally " low and 
sweet*' (don't you admire Byron? I do immensely), and I 
forget what else — Oh, to be sure, dictation, catechism, and 
arithmetic. "Music and singing of course, but I don't consider 
them part of my education, because I keep them up now. Xot 
that I have entirely forgotten the rest, oh dear no \ 
" Middlesex: capital, London ; Durham: capital, Durham ; 
chief commodity, mustard." You see I remember my 
geography. As for my catechism, of course I renounced 
that when I wag confirmed ; but I flatter myself I am still a 
pretty good hand at arithmetic, as the following little 
incident will show. The other day George, who is always 
teasing me, asked me this question : " A goose weighs seven 
pounds, and half its own weight : what is the weight of the 
goose?'' I answered without a moment's hesitation, "Ten 
pounds and a half," and I contend I am right, although 
George will persist in saying that it is fourteen pounds, 
which is impossible ; for as I said, " Where do you get 'half. 



8 INTRODUCTORY * 

its own weight from ? ' " and I assure you he could not tell 
me, at least not satisfactorily. All he could say was, " Let 
x equal 'half its own weight/" but, as I replied, 
" What is x ? where do you get it from ? and how do you 
know it is equal to 'half its own weight?'" And to use 
a slang expression, he was completely " shut up." Whereas 
I can explain my answer quite clearly, thus : The goose 
weighs seven pounds, that the question tells you ; but it 
goes on to say, " and half its own weight," which is evidently 
half seven pounds, or three pounds and a half, and this 
added to seven pounds makes ten pounds and a half, which 
is therefore the weight of the goose. Can any thing be 
plainer than that ? Poor mamma, who has no head for 
figures, said she thought George must be right, because a 
goose would be more likely to weigh fourteen pounds than 
ten pounds and a half ; but, as I replied, although I certainly 
know nothing of the usual weight of geese, no doubt 
the goose was weighed after it was plucked, which would 
fully account for the difference, since feathers weigh very 
;heavy, for every school-girl remembers that old catch of the 
pound of feathers and the pound of lead, which shows plainly 
-enough that after all feathers do weigh as heavy as lead, 
although a superficial observer would scarcely fancy such 
was actually the case. 

Then again, George would have it that I could not do a 
long-division sum, and asked me to explain how I should 
set about it. Now I will just tell you what I said in order 
to show you that I am not only a fair arithmetician, but 
also understand, as few girls do, the principles upon which 
( the rules of the science are based. This is my way of 






IN TROD UCTOR Y 9 

explaining long division. You take a row of figures and put 
them at the top of the slate (I say slate because I always 
did my sums on a slate at school, and I have never done 
any since I left, thank goodness, which is all the more to my 
credit for recollecting so much, but no doubt the principle 
would be the same on paper as on a slate) — I repeat, you 
take a row of figures and put them on the top of the slate, 
rather towards the left hand. You then make a kind of loop 
on each side, and in the left-hand loop you place a row of 
figures smaller than the first row. After you have done this, 
you make a guess how many times the smaller row will go 
in a certain number of figures of the larger, put that in the 
right-hand loop, multiply and subtract ; bring down some 
more figures (generally one at a time, but occasionally two 
together) from the top row, dotting them under as you go on, 
and repeat the former process, adding figures in the right- 
hand loop until you have dotted all the figures of the top row, 
and covered one side of the slate (sometimes when the sum 
is very long you have to go over to the other side, but that 
is very inconvenient, not only because the first part of the 
sum is liable to be rubbed out, but also because it is very 
confusing ; so however large I wrote the figures at the top, 
I always made them very small towards the end, so as to 
squeeze it all in). When you have reached the right-hand 
bottom corner of the slate, you ought to finish with three 
little dashes should there be no remainder ; if there is, you 
take it up to the figures you have written in the right-hand 
ioop, place it at the end, rather above the row, in smaller 
figures than the rest, draw a line underneath, and below that 
place all the row in the left-hand loop in similar small figures, 



io INTRODUCTORY 

and the sum is done ; and that is the principle of long 
division. 

There, you see ! I am not the least bit conceited about 
what I know, so you must not think that. In fact, I should 
not have mentioned the subject at all, only I wished you to 
understand that I am not wholly unfitted for the task I have 
set myself to perform, which task I shall now proceed to 
explain. 

I said, you may recollect, that I thought I could write in 
a light and easy style upon various subjects without being 
considered a strong-minded character, and I here repeat the 
assertion. If Cornelius O'Dowd and A. K. H. B. (who 
always reminds me cf a lead pencil) can write essays 
upon all sorts of subjects with all sorts of queer names, 
that as often as not seem to have no connexion with the 
essays to which they are affixed ; why cannot I, Angelina 
Gushington? Those writers may be, and doubtless are, 
very clever; not that I pretend always to understand them — 
nor do I suppose they expect me to — but there are many 
matters of interest not only to ladies, but to gentlemen also, 
of which men necessarily know but little, such as fashions, 
dress, &c., &c., on which a lady alone is competent to 
give an opinion. Moreover, I am s:?re it would do men an 
immense deal of good if they could hear what women think 
of them ; but how can they, when they expect us to be 
always listening to them ? 

Of course you will say women do write ; never so much 
as at the present time perhaps. I know that very well, but 
they are not the kind of persons to write in the way I have 
suggested ; they are mostly middle-aged, or married, or old 



INTRODUCTORY 



it 

maids, or something, and so cannot be expected to enter into 
the feelings of girls in society, or give their opinions on 
matters as accurately as one of their own number would. 
There are plenty of clever women to write novels, and logic, 
and political economy, and what not, just like men ; but I 
think you will admit that there is an opening for a young 
lady, who does not pretend to be clever, to come forward 
and deliver her own opinions, and the opinions of other 
young ladies, who do not pretend to be clever either, upon 
many subjects of general interest ; let us say upon Men and 
Things. 

Therefore, Me. Editor, with your permission, I propose to 
write in the Light Blue Magazine a series of essays upon 
some such general subjects ; although I almost repent of my 
rashness when I reflect that my poor effusions will be brought 
into comparison with the works of all the rising genii (I 
wonder if that's right, it looks dreadfully like Arabian Nights* 
but one says fungi, you know, and geniuses is really such 
a very awkward word) of the age ; the future Lord Chancellors 
and Archbishops of the land. Still, there is something de- 
lightful in the notion. Angelina Gushington on Tea and 
Toast ; how well it sounds ! A. G. on Men and Manners. 
A. G. on Gores and Gussets. A. G. on Tatting and Tattling. 
A. G. on Two and Two being Four. Sauce for Bachelors, 
by A. G. Reflections on Old Maids, by A. G. I could go 
on for ever, I really could, if I had not already exceeded the 
limits you assign to contributors (and very rightly too, for 
I hate long articles). 

There ! now it is done, and yet after all I am quite in a 
fright at the thought that this will appear in print because 



12 INTRODUCTORY 

I know all people who write in the papers and magazines are 
so particular about their verbs, and pronouns, and stops, and 
language generally ; and although I am considered to write 
very good letters for a girl of my age (sometimes four sheets, 
and all crossed too), yet that is different, you know, from 
writing for the public eye, as one may say ; so I hope you 
will be so kind as just to look over what I have written, and 
put good grammar and that kind of thing, which I never 
could thoroughly understand, and never shall. 

I must finish now, for I hear George's step, and he will 
want me to show him this letter if I have not sealed it up, 
and he is always so persisting, I know I shall not be able to 
refuse him. Of course I wish to remain incognito, but still, 
if any young men of good family and prospects should wish to 
know our address, I do not mind your telling them, but not 
otherwise. I may mention, too, that there is very good 
Ashing in the neighbourhood. 



CROQUET 

QOmy letter really was inserted ! Well, I never ! to think 
^ that I should have become a literary character, and 
have actually launched my frail bark on the sea of — , of — , 
on the sea of — Dear me ! what sea was it I intended to 
mention ? Something allegorical of course, you know. The 
sea of — . Well, never mind, I shall remember by and by, 
I dare say. 

Now there is one thing puzzles me, and that is this : how 
one ought to write in an essay of this kind, whether in the 
first person, or the third, or to say, we, like leading articles. 
In a letter, of course, one speaks in the first person singular, 
which is easy enough ; but in an essay I don't know what is 
the proper thing to do, or how to put it : whether to address 
the gentle reader, or the public, or dearly beloved — (no, that 
is for sermons, of course — how stupid of me !) 

I'll tell you what I think I will do. I will adopt the first 
person, just as if I were writing a letter — no, penning an 
epistle (one must be careful of one's language now one is 
writing for the press), and talk of myself as 'I,' and of other 
people as l you,' meaning any body who chooses to read these 
modest effusions, which will make matters much simpler, and 



14 CROQUET 

prevent all chance of mixing up one's pronouns, as one is sc 
apt to do if not very particular. 

But to come to the subject of this essay. You will never 
guess, now, what I have been doing all the morning. I have 
been very busy, I can tell you. You mightn't think so, per- 
haps, but I have. Well, I have been setting out the croquet 
things, placing the hoops, you know. At least I have been 
helping George (he is my cousin — I think I mentioned him 
before. I dare say you all know him at Cambridge ; he is at 
Trinity, and such a fine, tall, handsome young man, you 
couldn't mistake him), and he is so very particular about 
doing things according to rule, just like all you mathematical 
men, that I really thought we never should get the hoops 
arranged to his satisfaction. I call it very hard work, too. 
This is how we set about it : we had a measuring tape, and 
so fixed the two pegs ; then I stood at one end and looked 
through a hoop, and George stood at the other and looked 
through another hoop, and when we saw one another quite 
plain (George says he never could see me plain, but he is so 
stupid, you know), then we knew the hoops were in line, and 
it took us such a time, you can't think ; but, as George said, 
it wasn't wasted (the time, I mean), at least for him, because 
he is reading very high in mathematics for his "post mortem" 
(what disgusting terms you do make use of at Cambridge, 
quite horrible ; of course it's something surgical, like that 
dreadful scratching I spoke of in my letter, because one 
always hears of the word in connexion with a body, and 
people sitting upon it ; besides, George said himself that the 
examiners would be sure to sit upon him, so I know it's that ; 
and, poor fellow he is so often out of spirits, and talks in 



CROQUET 15 

such a wild way about ploughing and spinning, that really 
I sometimes fancy he will give up the idea of going into the 
Church altogether, and take to farming or trade, which would 
be a great disappointment to us all, as there is a capital 
family living he would come in for, and the present incumbent 
is an old man, and very shakey ; in fact, he had a fit the other 
day, and made us all so nervous,, thinking he would go off 
before dear George was ordained). Dear me ! what a long 
parenthesis ! Where was I, I wonder ? oh, I know. George, 
I say, said he was not wasting his time, because mathematics 
being all about straight lines, the setting out of the croquet 
hoops would, as it were, illustrate the principles of the science 
in a practical manner, and help to fix them in the mind much 
more than reading a lot of dry books. I have no doubt he 
is right, for he turns every thing to " good account at last " 
(what a delightful dreaminess there is in Shelley's writings !) ; 
and the other day, when he was lying on the grass in the 
shade for two hours, and we thought him asleep, and mamma 
said how hazy he was, he proved after all, as he himself told 
us, to be deeply engaged in investigating the diurnal motion 
cf the earth round the sun, or the sun round the earth, I 
forget which, but I know it was one or the other. Indeed, 
he never plays croquet now, but he talks of diagonals, and 
parallelograms of forces, which may be very useful to him, 
certainly, as of course it is, but it is not what I call the right 
way to play croquet. And this brings me to the principal 
part of my subject ; for although I object to George's style 
of play, he only follows the fashion, as I will point out to 
you presently. The fact is, I have great complaints to make 
respecting the way in which the game is very generally 



16 CXOQUET 

played, and as I have observed that University men are, as 
a rule, first-rate players (as far as mere skill is concerned), 
I have hopes that the insertion of this article in a University 
Magazine may be instrumental in effecting some, to my 
thinking, much needed changes during the coming summer. 

A few years ago croquet was nothing more than a pleasant 
amusement, which brought young people together on the 
lawn of a country house, and served as a pretext for agree- 
able relaxation, conversation, &c. ; the game was a secondary 
consideration, to be played with more or less care in the 
intervals of flirtation. But now all this is changed ; croquet 
is no longer a game, it is a science. Time was when it was 
considered rather interesting in a girl to assume a nonchalant 
air, and pretend to be ignorant of the commonest rules of the 
game. " Blue " — (I always chose the blue ball when I could, 
because of my hair, you know, and as I frequently dressed in 
blue too, it often provoked complimentary remarks) — " Blue's 
turn to play. Where's Blue ?" That was the old style, and 
all the gentlemen immediately looked about with the greatest 
concern in search of Blue, who, upon being discovered talk- 
ing in an undertone to Red (in the Army), called up a blush 
in the most engaging manner possible, and said, " What ! 
my turn again ; oh ! what shall I do ! Please some one tell 
me which is my hoop ;" and so on for five or six minutes, 
when, having managed to do something very stupid, and 
been complimented upon her skill, she would the next instant 
be deep in a flirtation with Black (promising young curate), 
and forget all about the game. 

That was always my plan, and it told immensely, I can 
assure you, to appear helpless, and ask for advice, and all 



CROQUET 17 

that sort of thing, besides affording such splendid oppor- 
tunities for judicious flirtation. But now " Desdemona's 
occupation's gone " (that is a pretty alteration, isn't it ?) ; no 
more flirting for me ; there is no time for it. What with the 
forward stroke, and the following stroke, and the splitting 
stroke, and the side stroke, and the roque'ing, and helping 
one's friends, and one's friends helping themselves by your 
ball and taking you miles out of your way, a girl has to be 
all attention to keep up with the rest. 

Formerly, as I have said, it was considered a pretty inno- 
cent sort of thing to seem ignorant and helpless, and as of 
course I only pretended not to know what to do (at least in 
simple cases), I could still put on an interesting appearance 
of confusion, and yet be sufficiently cool and collected to 
turn up my eyes in a beseechingly piteous manner to the 
most eligible parti present, who would forthwith, in his 
anxiety to be of service, offer some utterly ridiculous and 
outrageous suggestion ; but now I often become really con- 
fused, and feel quite awkward, which is dreadful for a girl in 
society, you know, and what is worse, I receive no pity as I 
used to do. The gentlemen desert me to flatter some good 
player who knows very well what she is about, and that puts 
me out of spirits, and then I lose half my animation, which is 
generally considered to be my strong point. 

Just to give you an instance of what I mean, George used 
to be the most agreeable fellow imaginable on the croquet- 
ground ; he did not care twopence about the game, could 
scarcely hit the balls, and when he did, spooned dreadfully 
(in more senses than one, I can tell you), and was always 
dangling after me, and placing my ball for me, or keeping 

c 



18 CROQUET 

it from slipping from under my foot (and giving my toes 
such horrid pinches sometimes), and paying many other little 
attentions. Well, last summer, when he came down here in 
the Long, he was completely altered. He had become a 
first-rate player, and said he thought croquet was as good in 
its way as billiards, and that the rules of the game should be 
strictly adhered to, if it was to be played as it ought to be, 
scientifically. Instead cf following me about, as I had ex- 
pected he would have done, he laughed at me, and said I 
was stupid, which nearly made me cry with vexation ; and 
once, when I implored him in touching accents to tell me 
what I ought to do, and gazed at him in the most killing 
manner possible, he said he wondered I did not know by this 
time, that it was as plain as a pikestaff (that was the vulgar 
expression he made use of), that I had only to roquet this 
ball somewhere, croquet that ball somewhere else, then by a 
following stroke take another ball and my own through a 
certain hoop, then through another, then hit the peg at a 
particular angle so that the ball might rebound up to sonic 
one else, and ever so much more ; that what with annoyance 
and bewilderment I did something just the reverse, at which 
he exclaimed out loud that I had spoilt the game, and ' sold ' 
him completely. I was dreadfully angry, as I am sure I had 
a right to be, but he made it up afterwards by giving me a — 
little instruction, and he was more good-natured during the 
rest of his stay, but still very strict. 

Then again, about cheating ; why, formerly cheating was 
considered the prerogative of our sex, and a girl was thought 
rather clever than not who hid her ball by standing over it, 
or moved it secretly with her feet into a good position ; 
whereas now I should be positively afraid even to attempt 



CROQUET i 9 

any thing cf the kind, for people are so sharp over the game, 
it would be found out to a certainty ; and if it were, some good 
player who could foresee fifty moves ahead, would be sure to 
complain that his game was spoilt, since he had reckoned, 
after going goodness knows where, to come up to me, " take 
two off," and then become a rover. And this reminds me to 
say that I hate your clever players who offer to come back 
and do ever so much for you if you will only let them make 
use of your ball to get on with ; they either leave you in the 
lurch among a lot of enemies, or make some mistake just 
at the end, and you have to shift for yourself. And yet if 
you refuse you are pretty certain to hear something about 
want of public spirit (I don't call it public spirit to like being 
sent miles away from your hoop), ignorance of the game, 
cant understand strategy, and other agreeable remarks of a. 
similar kind, so that one often feels obliged to give way 
against one's own convictions. 

Moreover, as if to add to the difficulties which beset 
a girl who has a soul above the mere game, one rarely meets 
with two sets of croquet things exactly alike. On some 
Lawns the hoops are round, on others square. Some mallets 
are short and flat-headed, others long and round-headed ; 
some are ridiculously light, others as absurdly heavy. As 
for the balls, there is an endless variety in them. In the 
original sets, which for my own part I still consider the 
simplest, and therefore the best, each ball was painted all 
over cf one colour, different from the rest, four being dark, 
and four light. The varied hues had a very pretty effect on 
a lawn, and as the pegs were banded with the same in the 
order in which the balls followed one another, there was no 

C 2 



20 CROQUET 

excuse even for the most stupid person if he made a mistake, 
as whenever he was in doubt he had only to look at the peg 
to learn when his turn came. Even I, stupid as I confess 
myself to be, never experienced any real difficulty on that 
score. I know the order of the balls by heart now, — blue, 
pink, black, yellow, brown, orange, green, red, — and if ever I 
did appear to be at fault, it was only to give some gentleman 
an opportunity of instructing me, without taxing his brains 
too severely in the operation. 

But now that croquet has become so universal a game, 
every maker adopts some plan to distinguish his productions 
from those of other makers, and in most cases effects his 
object at the expense of the players by increasing the already 
excessive confusion arising out of the difference in sets. The 
least objectionable improvement, as some people call it, is the 
addition of a dark ring round the four light balls, and a 
light one round the dark balls, whereby persons of the most 
limited intellect can distinguish between their friends and their 
foes. But even this plan has an awkward appearance, since 
owing to the fact that white rings would not show on the 
light balls, nor black rings on the dark balls, each side is 
placed in the anomalous position of being obliged to play 
under false colours, the light side having the dark balls, and 
the dark side the light ones. Another device, a horrible one, 
is to have all the balls coloured alike in some neutral tint, and 
to distinguish them by numerals either actually cut in the 
surface of the wood, or legibly painted thereon. I contend 
that to adopt this plan is to destroy the romance of the game, 
and to reduce it to a mere question of arithmetic, the even 
numbers being pitted against the odd ones. 



CROQUET 21 

Besides, it will freqiently happen that from the position 
in which a ball is lying its number cannot be seen, in 
consequence of which it has to be turned over or moved 
in some way to the annoyance probably of some strict 
player. This difficulty has been surmounted, it is true, by 
certain ingenious individuals, who, instead of painting a 
single numeral on each ball, paint half-a- dozen or so ; but 
I leave you to imagine the hideous appearance presented by 
a croquet lawn, with a set of balls of this kind upon it, looking 
(as it does) as if the multiplication-table had run mad all 
over it. 

This last plan is simply repulsive to every well-regulated 
mind, but I must now draw your serious attention to another, 
which is so much the worse from the fact that its defects, 
equally great, are disguised by a specious semblance of 
symmetrical arrangement well calculated to allure the 
thoughtless and the giddy. The plan I allude to is that 
in which the balls are either left uncoloured or painted 
some light tint, and are distinguished by rings, four having 
red, say, and four blue rings, disposed in a sequence : 
the first ball on the blue side, for instance, w r ould have 
one ring, the second two, and so on, and the same with 
the red side, so that if blue one began, red one would 
follow, then blue two, and red two, &c. 

" What a beautiful arrangement !" many thoughtless people 
would exclaim, " so simple." Is it ? I have tried it, and I 
think it is not. In the first place every one is reduced to a 
monotonous level as regards colour, all red on one side, all 
blue on the other. Under the old system the side on which 
a lady was placed was often determined by an accidental 



22 CROQUET 

juxtaposition of colours : a pink bow and a pink ball, a blue 
band and a blue ball, had a kind of natural affinity for one 
another. Moreover, the different colours suggested such a 
variety of romantic associations ; for instance, supposing I 
had chosen the blue ball, I was henceforward known as 
Blue, and a gentleman with any soul would, upon looking 
at me, be reminded of the blue sky, and angels, and seraphs, 
or the azure waves, and sea-nymphs, and sirens; whereas 
were I, as I should be under the detestable plan described 
above, called Blue i., the appellation would suggest nothing 
to the most imaginative mind but policemen, cooks, and cold 
legs of mutton, and all must admit that there is not the 
least romance about them. 

Then the arrangement of the players I consider most 
puzzling, for although I do not enter very deeply into the 
game, I like to know whether it is safe for me to remain near 
an enemy, or whether such a person will play before me or 
net ; but it is quite an affair of mental arithmetic to make 
certain upon these points when one has nothing to guide one 
.but the difference of a ring or two, especially when, as is not 
unfrequently the case, a ball may be so situated that one 
or more of these very rings upon which all one's calculations 
are based may be out of sight. Should one of a side have 
become dead, the complications increase enormously, and I 
should advise no girl, under such circumstances, to attempt to 
make them out, or otherwise she will lose all the advantages 
for personal display, which the croquet-ground still in some 
measure affords, as her time and attention will be entirely 
taken up in solving addition and subtraction sums m her 
head, not to mention that the continued strain on the intellect 



CROQUET 23 

will be pretty certain to show itself in the countenance by a 
care-worn and perplexed look. 

The number of these contrivances for puzzling people 
which have been invented within the last year or two, to- 
gether with the scientific manner in which the game is now 
played, have made it so difficult to girls of my way of thinking, 
and indeed to some very fair players as well, as to render 
almost necessary the presence on every croquet-ground of 
one or more gentlemen to whom the task is delegated of ex- 
plaining the intricate manoeuvres which people are now called 
upon to perform. These gentlemen, so long as they confine 
themselves merely to their special duty of interpreting the 
mysteries of croquet, are very useful, but I regret to say that 
in too many cases they take an undue advantage of their 
position, and tyrannize unmercifully over all who are not so 
well acquainted with the game as they profess to be. These 
autocrats, for I can call them nothing less, are generally 
middle-aged clergymen, who are rather proud of the fact that 
at their time of life they have been able to learn something 
new, although it be nothing more important than how to 
play at croquet. They for the most part play fairly, but are 
better acquainted with the theory of the game than the 
practice, in which they are surpassed by more juvenile com- 
petitors. Still, their theoretical knowledge, combined with the 
obstinacy natural to middle age, gives them an advantage over 
really superior players, of which they make full use. To girls of 
my stamp, autocrats are accustomed to behave most despoti- 
cally, and one has no chance of defending oneself either, for 
the appealing glances, touching accents, and graceful gestures, 
which would subdue any young man, are quite lost upon these 



24 CROQUET 

middle-aged individuals, in whose hearts soft emotions no 
longer find a place. Even their clemency, such as it is, dis- 
gusts one almost as much as their cruelty, for when they 
yield a point they do it in a kind of patronizing way as if 
they were bestowing their compassion upon some inferior 
order of beings, in contemptuous pity for whom they con- 
descended to relax the severity of their commands. 

I have often felt a sort of electric shock when I have 
beheld an autocrat coming towards me as soon as it was 
my turn to play. Of course I am obliged to depend 
upon some one, and, if I consulted my own feelings, would 
rather apply for help to any young man who might happen to 
be near ; but it would be of no use for me to attempt to do so, 
as the autocrat would be certain to thrust himself between us, 
and being the acknowledged authority, would soon elbow 
out of the way any younger player. The autocrat advances 
with a patronizing smile ; I feel as if I were about to have a 
tooth taken out, and his words by no means remove that im- 
pression. " Now, Miss Gushington, if you please." I fully 
expect him to add " open your mouth a little wider, please ; 
wider still ; thank you, that will do," but instead the following 
dialogue, or something like it, generally ensues. 

Autocrat. " Now, please, it's your turn. What do you think 
of doing?" 

Myself. "Oh, I'm sure I don't know, I didn't think oi 
doing any thing." 

Autocrat (laughing contemptuously). " Dear me, haven't 
made up your mind, eh? (slowly) well, let me see: (considers 
for a moment or two) yes, So-and-so plays after So-and-so, 
and Thingummy plays before them. Place yourself here, 
please " (taps the spot with his mallet). 



CROQUET 25 

Myself. " Oh, I can't, I know I never shall " (here I throw 
him an appealing glance, for which all the return I get is — ) 

Autocrat (severely). " Pay attention to me, if you please ; 
you will be kind enough to place your ball exactly on this 
spot " (taps the place again more energetically). 

Myself. " Hadn't I better go to my own hoop ? I have 
been sent away so often, oh do let me go." 

Autocrat. "No, impossible, couldn't think of it. Spoil 
the game entirely. Will you place your ball here, please ?" 
(this is said with remorseless pertinacity.) 

Myself "But why?" 

Autocrat. " Oh, never mind why (he doesn't think it worth 
while to tell such a poor player as I am) ; place it here, 
please, (persuasively) it will be very much better, I assure 
you." 

Myself " But if I am to go so much out of my way, I 
should like to know the reason." 

Autocrat (feels he must allege some reason). " Oh, you 
see, So-and-so plays, and then So-and-so, and then I come 
and take two off, and — — in fact, it is decidedly the best 
plan for you to come here." 

Myself (piteously). " Oh, I wish somebody else had to 
play." (I prepare to hit the ball.) 

Autocrat (suddenly). " Stop, I think this will be an easier 
stroke ; yes, here, please" (points in quite a different direction ; 
the fact is, he has made a mistake in his calculations, but 
will not confess it). 

Myself " Oh, that is much riore difficult (as it really is) ; 
besides, I'm wired." 

Autocrat. " No, oh dear no, you will clear the wire by fully 
an eighth of an inch." 



26 CROQUET 

Myself. " I feel convinced I shall not." 

Autocrat (to quiet me). "Yes, yes you will, I am sure you 
will. Stop, let me give you a line (lies down on the grass 
and squints at the balls) ;. yes, that will do nicely." 

Myself. " I shall do something stupid, I know " (I prepare' 
to strike). 

Autocrat. "Stop, if you hit your ball like that, you will 
send it in quite a wrong direction." 

Myself. "Whatever am I to do, then ?" 

Autocrat. " Rotate the mallet," 

Myself. "Do what?" 

Atttocrat. "Rotate the mallet." 

Myself. " Oh, please what's that ?" 

Autocrat. " Simply cause it to revolve on its own axis." 

Myself "And what's that, please?" 

Autocrat (taking hold of the handle of my mallet, and 
turning it a little on one side, with a smile of pity for my 
ignorance). " There ! " 

Myself (for I am getting quite vexed, as all the company 
are now looking on and listening to my lesson). "Why 
couldn't you ask me to turn the mallet, instead of using 
those fine words ? " (A murmur of sympathy arises from 
several young men ; I throw them an approving glance.) 

Atttocrat (not deigning to notice my observation). "Atten- 
tion, please ; now, a steady pendulum swing, thus " (swings 
his own mallet). 

Myself (getting quite desperate). " I shan't attempt any 
thing of the kind (here I wildly strike my ball, which hits 
the wire and remains in the worst possible position for next 
time). There, I knew how it would be." 






CR0QUE1 r 

Autocrat (going off). "Well, if you'd only followed my 
directions, however — ; ' (shakes his head, and doesn't con- 
descend to conclude the sentence). 

Myself (mentally). "Horrid old wretch." 

Clergymen, especially High Church clergymen, I am 
sorry to say, make terrible autocrats. The inventor of 
croquet, whoever he was, has conferred an inestimable 
boon upon the clerical world, since he has given clergymen 
of correct principles an opportunity of enforcing by their 
practice the doctrine it is their duty to preach, namely, that 
religion is not the dreadfully serious and gloomy matter 
some old-fashioned divines would have us suppose, and 
that one may enter into the gaieties of the world to a very 
considerable extent, and yet be as good as, nay, perhaps 
better than, one's more self-denying neighbours. Clergymen 
have taken full advantage of the opportunity thus presented 
to them, and croquet has become quite the clerical game, 
and has completely usurped the position once held by bowls, 
and very naturally so, since ladies cannot play at the 
latter, whereas they can at the former, and ladies and 
clergymen almost always get on well together (of course 
middle-aged autocrats must be excepted}. The game, toe, 
is a mild and innocent cne, and does not require any 
great exercise of physical force in the player, so that it 
can be enjoyed without fear of compromising the clerical 
character, or injuring the delicate clerical frame. For all 
these reasons, therefore, I should be the last to grudge 
clergymen the harmless amusement afforded by croquet. 
All I ask of them (that is of middle-aged rectors, for young 
curates have rarely the nerve to behave despotically 



28 CROQUET 

towards a fine-looking girl) is that when they join with their 
parishioners and others, especially with ladies, on what may 
be termed secular ground, they should lay aside for a time 
that autocratic authority which in all affairs relating to their 
parish no one in his senses would ever question their right 
to exercise. We expect as a matter of course that a clergy- 
man who has had correct principles instilled into him 
should rule his parishioners with a paternal and almost 
despotic sway, and I should consider myself a very wicked 
girl indeed if I were not to yield to such an one a purely 
passive obedience ; still, I think my demand is one which, if 
granted, will not be inconsistent with the continued main- 
tenance of the rights and privileges possessed by the clergy 
of domineering over their lay neighbours on all important 
questions, but will in reality increase their power, since 
it will render them more attractive in the eyes of the 
younger and more beautiful portion of the opposite sex, 
whose influence, were any controversy to arise, would, if 
exerted on their behalf, infallibly turn the scale in their 
favour. 

There is, however, another point to which I wish to draw 
the special attention of my readers, and that is the almost 
universal decadence (I believe that is the right word) of the 
old-fashioned croquet. I mean the plan of sending an adver- 
sary away by placing your own ball by the side of his, and 
then putting your foot on yours, hitting it, and croque'ing the 
other ball to a great distance. You scarcely ever see it done 
now. The ' croquet ' has been superseded by the ( roquet * 
to my great annoyance, for I assure you that I used in 
happier times to make the croquet stroke the most telling 



CROQUET 29 

part of the evening's performance. Not that I evei croque'd 
an adversary myself— oh dear no ! I never was strong enough 
for that, but then I used to make the attempt. 

I will tell you how I managed it. In the first place I 
always had great difficulty in keeping my foot upon the ball; 
it would slip off. Well, of course I was obliged to hold up 
my dress a little in front, in order to see what I was about, 
so that I could not help displaying a very pretty foot and 
ankle, and a small portion of a beautifully moulded leg (there 
is no vanity in saying this, you know, one did not make 
oneself), and sometimes when a good many gentlemen have 
been looking on and assisting, I have kept my foot tottering 
on the ball (exhibiting in the most delightful manner the 
symmetry of my ankle) for nearly five minutes, exciting the 
admiration of the stronger and the envy of the weaker sex. 
During this time I would make futile attempts to hit my 
ball, and at last, after plaintively wondering what I ever 
should do, I would drop the curtain (figuratively, of course, — 
I mean let down my petticoats), and assign the task of per- 
forming the croquet to some favoured youth. (They don't 
even allow partners to croquet now.) 

I recollect very well one day, after I had gone through 
this performance with my usual success, young Grains the 
great brewer's son paid me some very pretty compliments, 
and I really think would have spoken his mind, if that odious 
old maid Miss Spilikins had not interrupted us by insisting 
upon putting a handkerchief round my neck. I know she 
did it on purpose, for the evening was excessively warm as it 
happened. 

Upon the new-fashioned plan of playing, no one croquets, 



3 o CROQUET 

so that the chief feature of my game is gone, for although I 
hold up my dress higher than any one else, I do not observe 
that I am taken more notice of in consequence. Besides, no 
position equals that of the foot unsteadily balanced upon 
a bail for showing off a pretty ankle to advantage. 

It quite grieves me, it does indeed, to see the gentlemen 
run after such girls as that little Miss Snowdrop, who has no 
ankles, at least to speak of, although they might be as big as 
this \ for she never shows them ; but then she can do the 
roquet stroke, and all sorts of strokes, and when her turn 
comes, knows exactly where to send her ball and how to send 
it ; while I, never having paid much attention to the game, 
or cared to become a good player, find out, now it is too late, 
that when once one has fallen into a bad style of play, it is 
very difficult to get out of it, or attain even to a moderate 
degree of proficiency. Gentlemen, as I have said, do so run 
after good players, in most cases plain-looking girls with 
snub noses, and nothing but their skill in a frivolous game to 
recommend them, that we, who have always depended upon 
such personal charms as nature has more or less bountifully 
bestowed upon us to retain around us a circle of admirers, 
find ourselves deserted, or at all events rarely noticed, except 
by raw youths fresh from school, or sober and useless 
married men. 

For my own part, if such a state of things continues much 
longer, I shall certainly go into a monastery, I mean con- 
vent ; for at present I see nothing in the long vista of years 

1 (Immense space indicated by the fair author, utterly impossible 
to represent in these pages. — Printer.) 






CROQUET 3: 

to come (I ran naturally of a poetical turn oi mind, as I dare 
say you have already discovered) but a life of single blessed- 
ness, with all its humdrum accompaniments of gossiping-, 
visiting sick people, talking scandal, dandling other peopled 
babies, and being worried to death by a parcel of nephews 
and nieces, who, because you are an old maid, seem to think 
they have a right to tease you in even* possible way, and yet 
expect you to treat them with some show of affection, and 
give them every thing the}- ask for. When I am at all melan- 
choly, or out of spirits, I feel certain I shall die an eld maid, 
for I am over twenty now, and have had but one offer (only 
a poor curate, with no hope of preferment) : but dear mamma 

: hear of such a thing, and wants to get me off sadly, as 
I have two younger sisters waiting to come out when any 
thing definite has been arranged about me ; for mamma 
says she could not think of having a lot of unmarried 

biers dangling after her, and bringing discredit upon 
her for her bad generalship in not having got them off in 
their proper rotation. Not that I wish to be married — oh 
dear no ! It's only when I am out of spirits that I talk of 
old maids as I did just now. No, I think they are dear 
delightful old things, and so useful, you know, after a certain 
time of life, as chaperones, and to take one out shopping. 
Still, as it is dear mamma's wish, and as she seems to have 
set her heart upon finding a husband for me, I should be 

Qg to sacrifice myself for her sake, and I had been 
locking forward to the garden parties this summer with a 
certain amount of interest : but if so much attention is to be 
paid to the game of croquet, and so little to the players (ex- 
cept such as play we 7 l, and then it is their skill and not theif 



32 CROQUET 

personal appearance that attracts people), I don't know that 
it will be of any use going to them. 

I do hope, therefore, that all young men who see this essay 
will read it carefully, and take into serious consideration my 
desire that croquet should once more be placed on its old 
footing, that is, that it should be looked upon, not in the 
light of a game of skill, but of an out-of-door amusement of 
no intrinsic value, but useful only as a means of bringing 
young people together on a pleasant summers evening — in 
fact, as a vehicle for more unrestrained, and therefore more 
judicious, flirtation than can be carried on in the midst of the 
conventionality and etiquette of the ball-room. 

We live in a very nice neighbourhood, beautiful scenery 
and all that, at least I have been told it is beautiful, but 
for my own part I don't care very much for what people 
call nature ; I prefer art. 

Now don't you think it would be a nice place for a quiet 
reading party in the Long ? / think it would. A reading 
party gives such life to a neighbourhood ; for although of 
course the young men study very hard early in the morning 
and late at night, yet they always seem to find time to enter 
into amusements by day ; at all events I recollect, when I 
was on a visit at my uncle's in Devonshire the summer before 
last, a party of Oxford men came down to the village to read, 
and one met them every where at croquet parties, archery 
meetings, and dances, and yet they must have been reading 
hard some time or other, for they were all going into the 
Church, which, as George says, is not so easy a profession as 
it used to be, now the bishops are so particular about ordain- 
ing only talented and learned men. 



CROQUET 33 

I hope no one will think me bold or forward in suggest- 
ing the idea of a reading party, but I am such a mere 
creature of impulse, I am sure to say the first thing that 
comes into my head without thinking of the consequences, 
and it is that which makes me so nervous at submitting 
my essays to the public eye for every one to pass re- 
marks upon and pull to pieces. By-the-by, this has 
brought to my recollection the sea upon which I have 
launched my frail bark, which I could not remember when 
I began this essay. When I saw my Letter in the second 
number of the Light Blue, I felt quite a flutter at the 
thought that I had become a literary character, and 
had launched my frail bark upon the azure sea of adverse 
criticism. That was the sea I couldn't remember. It is a 
pretty idea, isn't it 1 ' Azure sea of adverse criticism :' I 
was a long time selecting my words, and at last they came 
upon me quite suddenly one night in bed, and I could not 
go to sleep for ever so long thinking of them, they seemed 
so appropriate and so symbolical. Dear me, how I have 
been running on : and what nonsense I have been talking, 
to be sure ! I shall send this essay without looking over it, 
for I know if I did I should be certain to put it in the fire. 

I shall be on the look out for the reading party, and shall 
try and persuade George to give me some lessons in croquet 
before they come. 



ON GOING TO TOWN, 

BECAUSE EVERY ONE GOES, YOU KNOW 

/^\F course you know we go to Town in the season every 
^-^ year, although dear papa is always against it : why, I 
can't think, because he has very little trouble, only just to see 
the luggage labelled and put in the van, and then take tickets 
and seats, and carry umbrellas and shawls, and buy newspapers 
and London Societies, and inquire where the train stops, and 
where it doesn't stop, and when it does stop how long it 
stops, and whether it is an express all the way, or only part, 
and if so, what part ; so that we may all start comfortably 
upon our journey, which generally takes place about the end 
of May or beginning of June. And yet papa always grumbles, 
and says he doesn't see the necessity for a country rector's 
family (I forgot to tell you we live at the rectory) to make a 
point of seeing the sights in London, just to say we have seen 
them : indeed, once, to dear mamma's horror, he said he 
thought our best plan would be to read up in the news- 
papers all about the exhibitions, and operas, and botanicals, 
and when our friends returned from London to talk as if we 
had been there too I thought it quite wicked of him, 



ON GOING TO TOWN, &c. 35 

although he is my papa ; but as George has so often said, in 
his poetical way, he does not see such matters " in the light 
of modern times." 

At all events, he generally objects to our annual visit to 
London, and sometimes endeavours to persuade us not to go, 
by promising to take us on the Continent, which of course we 
should prefer, because we have none of us been there, except 
when papa was quite a young man, before he was married. 
Not that I think a foreign trip need deprive us of our 
visit to Town ; yet papa seems to assume, that both cannot 
come off in the same year. Consequently, when he declared 
his intention of going to Switzerland in the Autumn, I was 
in a fright at the thought, that while all the world was 
indulging in the gaieties of London, we should be con- 
demned to the rustic delights of hayfields, woodland rambles, 
fern collecting, and all that sort of thing, — which is very well 
in its way, but possesses no particular attractions for fashion- 
able girls ; so I said, " Papa, dear, what are we to do with 
ourselves this Summer ?"' " Stay at home,*' he replied. 
i; Stay at home ! " I thought. "What a dreadful idea ! What 
will the Dashwoods, and the Plantagenet-Smythes (a new 
family lately come into the neighbourhood, reported enor- 
mously rich), and the Fiddle-Faddletons of Fiddle- Faddleton 
(a very old family), and lots of other people, think of us 2" 
Mamma, I am glad to say, backed us up, that is my 
younger sisters and myself, and so it was at last fixed that 
we should go to Town on such a day, when papa unfortu- 
nately was attacked with rheumatism in his right arm, which 
he declared was almost useless. However, mamma, who 
remembers every thing so, said she recollected a medical 

D 2 



36 ON GOING TO TOWN, 

man once telling her that nothing was so good for that com- 
plaint as travelling, and so we persuaded papa to go, leaving 
Mr. Minikin the curate to do the duty. We gave papa plenty 
of wraps to carry, so that he might keep his poor arm warm, 
and I must say, what with our taking the trouble off his 
hands, as I told you we did, we managed very well ; indeed 
papa's arm became so much better as soon as we were once 
fairly off, that I began to fancy he must have been shamming 
a little. 

We took lodgings in St. James's-street — such nice people, 
every thing so quiet (except of course the cabs and things), 
and well arranged. I was quite charmed, although papa de- 
clared it was a nasty little pokey hole, and that his bedroom 
was not fit for a dog to sleep in. It certainly was rather high 
up, but I must say he was not in the best of humours ; why, 
I can't think, because he was only half an hour getting us a 
cab, and finding our luggage, and then had a nice drive from 
Paddington, in the open air, on the box between the driver 
and a carpet-bag, which I should have fancied would have 
freshened him up after the hot railway carriage. 

Of course we spent the first morning in shopping, so that 
we might have fashionable things — bonnets, &c. — to appear 
in. What we did get I will tell you by and by. We were 
obliged to have something, not only because we were afraid 
lest any of our friends should meet us dressed in last year's 
clothes, but also because we knew that dear Lady de Wilkins, 
the moment she heard we were in Town, would be wanting to 
take us a drive in the Park. 

However, papa was so desirous of seeing the Royal 
Academy in their new rooms at Burlington House, that we 



BECAUSE EVERY ONE GOES 37 

went there as soon as our bonnets were sent home, and 
before we called on Lady de Wilkins. 

Whether it was that I had expected too much from what 
I had heard of the new buildings or not, I cannot say ; but, 
I must confess, I was a little disappointed in the rooms. 
With the exception of the third room they are so small. I 
admit that they are lofty, that the light is excellent, and that 
the decorations are in good taste ; but, I must say, I should 
have preferred five really spacious rooms to ten com- 
paratively small ones. In every room there are, of course, 
four corners, making forty corners in all ; one for each 
R.A. by the by, and at every corner one's progress is im- 
peded by a block of people. However, the improvement over 
the old building in Trafalgar Square is so marked, that it 
would be ungracious to criticize the new one over severely. 

The Exhibition I thought, on the whole, was a good one, 
and I marked on my catalogue the pictures that chiefly 
attracted my attention, and then made short notes when I 
returned home. I will give you a few specimens, just to 
show you that I do know a good painting when I see one, 
and, besides, have an eye for what I believe are called the 
points of a picture. I must not forget to tell you that 
George, who had just returned from Cambridge and was 
staying in London, went with us. 

These are some of my notes : — 

No. 24. Hetty. — V. Prinsep. Well, not my idea of a 
pretty girl ; but I suppose one can hardly expect to find 
style among the lower- orders. 

No. 45. The Return of the Dove.—G. F. Watts, R.A. 
More like an owl than a dove. Besides, where is the ark ? 



3S ON GOING TO TOWN, 

I should have handled the subject far more poetically. I 
should have placed the ark in the foreground (if one could 
have a foreground where there is nothing to be seen but 
water) with Noah and all his family, including the animals, 
looking out anxiously for the dove, just visible in the extreme 
distance. This mode of treatment would have afforded 
ample scope for the expression, in a vivid and life-like 
manner, of the various emotions of hope, fear, &c, visible in 
the countenances of the inmates. Whereas, in the picture 
before us, there is absolutely nothing but an expanse of 
dirty green water, whose monotonous surface can scarcely 
be said to be relieved by waves as straight as the lines in a 
copy-book, and a nondescript bird. I must confess I like 
to see a little sentiment in a picture of this stamp. 

No. 81. Rev. A. G. Butler.— G. Richmond, R.A. Poor 
man, how he blushes ! 

No. 82. Hope and Fear. — W. P. Frith, R.A. As a mere 
picture, pretty and taking : as a representation of fact, delu- 
sive. In the walk of life to which all parties evidently belong, 
parents would be secondary considerations, to be consulted 
pro forma after the young couple had completed their 
arrangements. 

The young man is fairly good-looking, but not manly 
enough for me ; wants whisker. And I do hope, if he does 
marry the girl, that she will teach him how to dress properly. 
Old clothes may be more picturesque than new ; but painters 
should observe what I believe are technically termed the 
"unities," and recollect that a man does not usually go 
courting in a shabby suit of clothes and a hat much the 
worse for wear. 



BECAUSE EVERY ONE GOES 39 

As for the girl, I haven't a word to say in her favour. 
A poor, spiritless, love-in-a-cottage creature, without an atom 
of style. I pity him ; he deserves a better fate. 

No. 91. A Siesta. — V. Prinsep. I must say I wonder at 
the imprudence of the girl in going to sleep so close 
to the water. If she tumbles in she will be drowned to a 
certainty, and that beautiful feather fan will be completely 
ruined. 

No. 99. Medea. — F. Sandys. Now what is there in this 
picture to make such a fuss about ? A plain woman, who, 
aware that after a certain time of life nature needs the 
assistance of art, is sitting at her toilet-table mixing some 
renovating compound, most probably procured from the 
Madame Rachel of the period, This is all. From the ex- 
pression of her face, I should be inclined to imagine that 
she feels annoyed because for some reason or other she has 
failed to produce the fashionable tint of the day. It is very 
evident to me that if she pulls that necklace much longer 
the elastic will break, and the beads be scattered all over 
the room, whereupon her maid will have no end of trouble 
to pick them up again. 

As to the toad and frog, and other hideous creatures, I 
can only say there is no accounting for tastes, and that at 
any rate I should not like to have such things on my 
dressing-table. 

No. 104. The Gambler's Wife.—]. E. Millais, R.A. A 
perfect fright : playing at patience, I suppose. 

No. 123. Scene from Don Quixote.— -YV '. P. Frith, R.A. 
I never read the book ; but I don't wonder at any girl 
fainting at the sight of such a horrible old man. 



.10 ON GOING TO TOWN, 

No. 133. Celiacs Arbour. — G. D. Leslie, A. The painter 
should have remembered that red is a very trying colour 
to a fair complexion. Besides, what girl would think it worth 
her while to tie a garland of roses round her neck in an 
arbour all by herself, with no one to look at her ! 

No. 152. Les Nymphes. — J. B. C. Corot. Fat and ugly : 
not very nymph-like. As the young lady does not seem to 
object to dressing in the open air, I should suggest that 
before she completes her toilet she should make use of a little 
soap and water. 

No. 153. Only a Shower. — G. Mason, A. This picture 
was no doubt left out in the shower, and half washed 
away. 

No. 294. Conseil. — C. Baugniet. A lovely picture ; just 
like an illustration of Paris fashions in the Illustrated 
London News. The dresses beautifully painted. The lace 
alone on the one must have cost a small fortune. 

No. 357. Vanessa. — J. E. Millais, R.A. How any woman 
with the smallest regard for appearances, or the slightest 
appreciation of what is due to herself, could venture to weai 
such a frightful mixture of colours astonishes me. 

No. 375. Hay time. — T. Armstrong. I call this a senseless 
picture. Three gawky women, in cheap dresses of some 
flimsy material, very much faded and evidently made up 
by a country dressmaker, are standing in listless attitudes 
staring at nothing. As the figures are all equally lanky, 
equally short in the body, equally long in the skirt, and 
equally meaningless, I suppose they are intended to be 
classical. Thank goodness, I don't understand classical 
works ! 



BECAUSE EVERY ONE GOES 41 

There ! these are a few specimens of the notes I made on 
the pictures. Of course I observed what people had on ; for 
instance, I find written on the blank leaf of my catalogue, 
" Blue velvet sash trimmed with black niching, sweetly pretty." 
" Ribbon run through in petticoat body, colour of trimming on 
dress." But these remarks were never meant for the public eye. 

The day after our visit to the Royal Academy we called, 
in Brook-street, on Lady de Wilkins. Before I proceed any 
further, I must tell you that George always laughs at the 
above-mentioned lady, simply because she is the widow of 
a mayor of a country town, who was knighted on presenting 
an address to the Queen on the Prince of Wales's safe re- 
covery from the measles. But, as mamma very justly says, 
although she is vulgar, she has plenty of money, for the late 
Sir Richard de Wilkins was very fortunate in his speculations 
in tallow. Besides, she lives a long way from us, so that we 
can boast of her acquaintanceship at home, and talk of our 
drives in the Park with that dear Lady de W., and take 
advantage of all the civilities she can offer us in town, without 
being obliged to tell our friends that she is the widow of a 
retired tallow-chandler (shortly before his death he launched 
out into bone-boiling, but I rather think he lost money by the 
concern). 

However, notwithstanding George's sarcastic remarks, we 
called in Brook-street, found the dear old lady within, and 
before we left she gave us up her box at the Opera for that very 
night. Of course we accepted it, for although I had been once 
or twice, neither of my sisters had. The piece was Don Gio- 
vanni, at the Italian Opera, Covent Garden, and most lovely 
it was, or rather would have been, I should say, if our box had 



42 ON GOING TO TOWN, 

not been so high (I am sure I don't know how we managed 
to get poor dear papa up all those steps with that dreadful 
asthma of his), and so far from the centre that we had to take 
it by turns who should see the stage. Helen and Katey 
(my two sisters) would persist in looking at the book with 
Italian on one side and English on the other, and the former 
priding herself on her acquaintance with the Italian language 
must needs inform us all in audible tones of the progress of 
the piece. Papa fell asleep, and I think mamma was very 
much inclined to follow his example, but we girls enjoyed it 
immensely, only that Helen and Katey spent so much time 
looking at the book, that they saw little of what was passing 
on the stage. I had never seen this opera before, but I could 
' twig ' (I think you call it) the whole plot as distinctly as if 
I had been told it previously. Don Juan is really married to 
Donna Anna, who is half-sister to Donna Elvira, which 
accounts for her interest in the long bill of costs which 
Leporello shows her, and which his master has incurred in 
getting a separation from his wife, whom he charges with 
cruelty before the Divorce Court of the period. Don Juan 
then marries Zerlina, a girl of obscure birth, but worthy of 
the exalted station to which he raises her, when his late 
wife's father, who only pretended to be dead by the ingenious 
device of appearing to be a statue, thrusts Don Juan into the 
mouth of a furnace, but being covered with a suit of asbestos, 
escapes unhurt himself. The piece is evidently cut very short, 
for there is no doubt but that Zerlina, after having mourned 
her husband's death for a decent time, demeans herself by 
marrying a former lover, a man of very low extraction indeed. 
And wasn't Titiens beautiful ? Wasn't she lovely ? She re- 



BECAUSE EVERY ONE GOES 43 

minds me, in her full notes, of the nightingale, and, in her 
delicious trill, of the thrush. I must not forget to tell you> 
however, that George, who heard we were going, to our great 
amazement entered our box in the coolest manner possible 
between the acts — which I for one was very glad of, for 
nobody but he would have thought of bringing in those 
beautiful Neapolitan ices and those lovely biscuits. Papa, 
who woke up when George came in, called it nonsense, and 
a waste of money in a young man who had nothing to live 
upon but what his parents chose to give him ; but my opinion 
is that it was all the more self-sacrificing — don't you think so, 
now ? Besides, he brought such a capital opera-glass that we 
could see all over the house ; and certainly there were some 
beautiful head-dresses, which made one envious to a degree 
impossible to express ; though I do not by any means agree 
with George when he said there were a number of good- 
looking girls in the house, for a set of plainer people I think 
I never saw ; I am sure they wanted fine clothes to set them 
off. / went au naturel^ I mean with nothing but a rose in 
my hair. I like simplicity and artlessness ; it makes one appear 
younger too, which of course nobody objects to. 

I did enjoy that night at the Opera, as you may imagine ; 
in fact, I never knew before how much mere music and sing- 
ing could help one to a knowledge of the plot of a piece. 

The very next evening we went to hear Sothern in his 
popular character of Lord Dundreary at the Haymarket. 
The fact is, George has some friends who are what they call 
u Owls," and they always contrive to get tickets for every 
thing; and George said he had five given him for the 
orchestra stalls— I really believe he bought them, but he 



44 ON GOING TO TOWN. 

said he had them given him, which I consider to be quite 
allowable — so that there would be sufficient for us all, if 
papa took us ; but he, as usual, was glad enough of any 
excuse not to go ; so George was our escort. I am sure I 
never laughed so much in my life ; not in a loud, boisterous 
manner, as a girl near me did, a girl too whom George had 
the bad taste to say was exceedingly pretty ; vulgarity and 
prettiness cannot go together, I say. At all events, prettiness 
should be no excuse for vulgarity. 

Poor Dundreary, how delightfully absurd he is ; and yet 
I can quite understand his bewilderment on some subjects : 
for instance, you remember where he counts his fingers 
backwards and forwards with a different result in each case. 
Well, do you know, although I have a pretty fair head for 
figures, I have tried to count mine in the same way, and I 
never can get them to come right, even when George held 
one of my hands to simplify the calculation. Buckstone 
invariably makes me laugh ; and yet they say he has been 
married three times. Shocking man ! what a wicked per- 
petration of youthful innocence. I was glad I was told of 
it after I had seen him the other evening, or I should have 
felt quite uncomfortable. 

However, we enjoyed ourselves very much ; and George, 
who sat between me and Helen, having seen the piece before, 
told us what was going to happen, and explained it beau- 
tifully, in his usual lucid style, until an old gentleman, a 
horrid old brute (I don't say those are my words, mind), who 
sat behind, kept on crying " hush — hush ! " so very loud, 
that we could scarcely hear what dear George was saying. 

You remember dear delightful John Parry, with his 



BECAUSE EVERY OXE GOES 45 

Wedding Breakfast, at the Gallery of Illustration, of course. 
I) Well, notwithstanding the forgery or plagiarism, or whatever 
I the right word is, of which he was guilty in making use 
j of my name for one of the young ladies he caricatures 
(Miss Gushington who married Mr. Yeanay, you know), we 
always made a point of going to see him, and were accord- 
ingly dreadfully disappointed when we found he was no 
longer acting with the German Reeds. George, who can be 
most absurd, said the entertainment if good before, would 
now be unparrytteled; but, notwithstanding his joke, he 
could not persuade us to go to it. 

I find I have been scribbling on at such a rate that I shall 
not be able to tell you half we did or saw in London. How 
we spent a delicious day at the Crystal Palace, and an 
instructive day at the Kensington Museum, and saw the 
fish-hatching and the Meyrick collection of armour ; and 
how we went again to the Opera, and heard Nilsson, who 
certainly sings charmingly, though why George should rave 
about her good looks, and go to the expense of buying her 
photograph, I can't imagine. 

We drove in the Park too with dear Lady de Wilkihs. 
George thought it awfully slow, so made an excuse to get out 
and lean with his hands on the railings, to rest himself, he 
said — but I know better ; it was to look at the pretty girls 
riding in the Row (if there were any, I saw none). Lady de 
Wilkins was most kind to us, and pointed out all the cele- 
brities, and we had such a capital view of dresses and 
bonnets, it was quite charming. George declared that a 
pair of well-bred snails would have taken us along at a faster 
rate ; but as I said to him, " Don't be vulgar, George ; how 



46 ON GOING TO TOWN, frc. 

could we go fast, with carriages behind us and before us, and 
on each side ?" Besides, we had plenty of variety, for we 
changed several times, first driving above the Row, then 
below it, and so on ; u and after all, George (I continued), it 
is just as much - the thing ' for us to do, as it is for you to 
lean on the railings, sucking the handle of your walking- 
stick." 

Now about the bonnets. I intended to write quite a long 
description of them, but in truth they are beyond all descrip- 
tion, the sweetest, tiniest little loves you can possibly imagine. 
I quite long to return home, to show mine off in church — I 
do indeed. 




THE READING PARTY 

T T OW delicious the quiet of the country is after the noise, 
-*■ -*■ and the dust, and the heat, and the turmoil of London! 
One enjoys it so much more after a little change— don't you 
think so ? I am sure I could sit for hours under the acacia- 
tree on the lawn reading and working, and I have done such 
a lot of tatting, enough to trim a body with ; for I think 
nothing looks so simple and unaffected for a young girl as 
a body embroidered with tatting, especially when she can 
say she has done it all herself; and mine certainly is lovely, 
although I did make it, but then I took the pattern from 
a lady who sat in front of me at church when we were in 
London. To tell you the truth, those open seats are the 
greatest blessing possible, for I assure you I never come from 
church without obtaining some new idea on the subject of 
dress, bonnets particularly. People may talk about its being 
wrong to look about one in church, but what is one to do, 
I should like to know, when there is a love of a bonnet within 
a few inches of one's nose, or the back of a gentleman's head 
beautifully brushed, with the straightest possible parting ? and 
how they do it I can't conceive, but I always will say a 
gentleman who parts his hair evenly behind must be nice. 



43 THE READING PARTY 

Dear me ! how I do rattle on, from the quiet of the 
country to gentlemen's partings. Oh, I do so enjoy the 
country ! There's that dear blackbird again. Here he comes 
hopping on to the lawn. Whatever is he doing ? Why, 1 
declare he is pulling out a great worm as big as himself. 
Oh, you disgusting creature ! " Hish, hish ! " There, he is off 
now. I shall never like blackbirds again. George says they 
eat them in some countries. What dreadful heretics the 
people must be ! 

Do listen tothat sweet wood-pigeon. Its soothing notes make 
me quite sentimental — but all hearts are hollow now-a-days, 
I firmly believe. Good gracious ! if there isn't that odious 
old maid, Miss Thistleton, coming up the drive, and I am 
not dressed ; she will spread it over the village that I have 
nothing to wear. Whatever shall I do ? Goodness ! she 
sees me — I must speak tocher now. 

" Oh, Miss Thistleton, how do you do ? How kind of you 
to call so soon ! " 

" Not at all, my dear — we young people always take an 
interest in one another. I am quite well, thank you, dearest, 
(kiss, horrid creature !) but I am sorry to see you are not look- 
ing nearly so well as when you left. I am afraid London did 
not agree with you." 

" Oh, you are quite mistaken, darling. I adore London, 
and should like to live there always " (dreadful story, but I 
hate the woman. Not looking well, indeed ! I am sure she 
needn't talk, for she is as yellow as a guinea, and I have 
counted twenty fresh wrinkles on her face already). " Then 
one could go to all the operas, and balls, and concerts, 
and entertainments" (she thinks such things wicked), "and 



THE READING PARTY 



49 



drive in the Park every day on week-days, and go to that 
dear delightful All Saints, Margaret-street, on Sundays " (she 
is very Low Church), "just asyoit used to do when you were 
my age, my dear. Oh, nonsense ! I know you were very 
fend of gaiety in your young days "' (she never was in London 
in her life, and as for ever having been young ! why, she was 
born a grown-up old maid, I am certain). "But come in and 
speak to mamma, she will be delighted to see you " (horrified 
would have been the right word). 

There ! she's gone at last, after staying an hour and a half. 
But I will say one thing for her, and that is, she always 
brings a budget of news. Malicious people would say she 
was a walking newspaper and a scandalmonger, and all that, 
but thank goodness, I never have the smallest desire to speak 
ill of people. And what do you think ? Why, there's that 
young Grains actually engaged to Seraphina Pollington, who 
hasn't a penny. Sherry is a darling love, and I like her so ; 
but whatever he could have seen in* her, I can't possibly 
imagine. Indeed, some people do say she squints — not that 
I ever observed it, although, now I think of it, she scarcely 
ever looks one in the face. Such a quiet and unobtrusive 
girl too, with not an atom of style about her. I must say 
I do wonder at men's taste in some things. 

But that was not all Miss Thistleton told us. She said 
she had heard that a reading party from Cambridge were 
now in the village, having arrived the day before yesterday, 
and that they intended to stay at least two months ; that 
some had taken lodgings at Widow Boycott's, and that 
the rest were stopping for the present at the Crown Inn* 
close by. 

E 



5 o THE READING PARTY 

I felt so conscious when I heard this, knowing what I had 
said in my essay on " Croquet," that I blushed up to the very 
roots of my hair, and I am sure she observed my confusion, 
for I saw a twinkle in her eye, when I tried to put her off the 
scent by fanning myself, and saying how insufferably hot the 
weather had become of late. I have not the slightest doubt 
but that she will make up some tale or other about me. How- 
ever, when she was gone we talked the matter over, and deal 
mamma thought with me that there could be no impropriety 
in my sisters and myself taking our evening walk along the 
banks of the river, which runs within a hundred yards of-the 
Crown ; for although we scarcely ever walk that way, yet, as 
I said, I did not see that the mere arrival of a parcel oi 
strangers should prevent us from going in that direction if 
we chose. 

So, after tea (we always dine early in the summer), off we 
started (I wore my blue grenadine and a piquant hat with 
a blue feather) ; and as we passed a bend in the river, we 
came upon what we afterwards knew to be the reading party, 
quite suddenly, so suddenly, in fact, that I entirely lost my 
presence of mind, and stared at them in the rudest manner 
possible, instead of looking straight forward and appearing 
to see nothing, as of course I ought to have done. 

So far as we could judge, there seemed to be about seven 
or eight of them. They were all lying on the grass, with the 
exception of one, who was fishing, and most of them were 
smoking short pipes. In the general way I object strongly 
to the smell of tobacco, and have spoken often enough to 
George about the nasty habit he has of displaying a dirty 
black pipe (which he prizes immensely, apparently. on account 



'I HE READING PARTY 51 

of its dirtiness) ; but on that evening, whether it was the river, 
or the atmosphere, or what, I can't say, but I quite liked the 
scent of the smoke as it was borne towards us on the breeze. 

When we returned, all of us began at once to tell papa 
and mamma that we had seen them (for although we did not 
know exactly, yet we felt quite convinced they were the 
reading party), and all about it. So then mamma, who is so 
prompt in every thing she does, declared that papa must go 
the next day and call upon the head of the party, for, as she 
said, she knew there was nothing the young scions of the 
nobility liked so much as to go into out-of-the-way places 
where they were not known, and travel incog, (as Haroun 
al Raschid did, you will remember, in the Arabian Nights) ; 
and there was no saying, she added, but that some of them 
might take a fancy to one of the girls (meaning me and my 
sisters). Of course we all blushed, and said, " Nonsense, 
mamma, how you do go on!" but I will confess that I think 
mamma is one of the most thoughtful persons in the world. 

Papa (who has no idea of foresight) objected, as usual, 
ai\r. said he should wait till they came to church on Sunday, 
and call afterwards ; but he yielded at last when mamma, who 
has so much tact, and quite manages poor dear papa, said 
how awkward it would be if some of them were to make 
a mistake and come into our seat, from not having been 
previously informed upon the subject. Whereupon he agreed 
to go next day. 

As we expected (and I am sure we thought of nothing 
else all the time he was gone), he brought back a most 
favourable account. He called about eleven o'clock to make 
sure of finding them in, but he need not have gone so early, 

E 2 



52 THE READING PARTY 

as most of them were still at breakfast, a fact which Mr, 
Fillip, B.A., who was in charge of the party, explained by 
saying that the young men preferred to do most of their 
work in the morning, and although they began punctually at 
six o'clock, he could never tear them away from their studies 
until eleven or half-past ten at the earliest. 

Papa, while admiring the perseverance of the young men, 
deprecated such a severe course of reading, as likely to injure 
the health; more particularly, he added, as he perceived, 
from the somewhat care-worn and rather sleepy appearance of 
several (who, he told us, yawned openly, notwithstanding that 
he was describing in a most graphic manner some of the 
beautiful natural features of the district), that they worked 
late at night as well, a fact which Mr. Fillip did not attempt 
to deny. Indeed, seeing papa glance at a large flagon that 
stood upon the table, he said that the poor fellows were 
obliged to take beer even in the morning, or they could never 
stand the continual strain upon the system. 

I will not tire your readers by telling them how we at 
length became acquainted with the whole party, but I must 
say how frightened I was when Mr. Fillip and two of the 
young men first returned papa's call. I didn't know what 
to talk about in the least, for I was afraid if I did not begin 
to speak of something learned, they would think me stupid in 
not selecting a topic suited to the capacities of reading men. 
•At last, after one of those dreadfully uncomfortable pauses 
which will sometimes occur in conversation when perfect 
strangers meet for the first time, I ventured to say to the 
one who sat nearest me, a gentleman with a dull heavy 
countenance, so of course I knew he must be clever, " How 



THE READING PARTY 53 

long will it be before you become Senior Wrangler?" when, 
to my astonishment (for I thought I had selected such a con- 
genial subject), he looked very surprised, and then laughed, 
and answered, " Oh, a very long time ;" to which I replied, 
with an appearance of much interest, "Oh, indeed!" (what 
else could I say ?) But not wishing to let the conversation 
flag again, particularly as mamma was looking "'talk" at me 
as hard as she could, I continued quite gravely, for I wanted 
to make him think that I was not a perfect ignoramus as to 
Cambridge studies, " Then I suppose you are going through 
your post mortem V (which can't be such a severe operation 
as I had imagined, for George recovered very quickly after it.) 
whereat he laughed again, and so did his companion, who 
put me in such a state of confusion, that I was obliged to 
blush (but I do not think more than became me), by asking 
how I had learnt the Cambridge phraseology. So then of 
course I was compelled to say we had a relative there (but I 
did not name George, because we expected him to come 
down the next week). After I had said this, I observed that 
they seemed disinclined to talk either about Cambridge or 
their studies, and even Mr. Fillip, with whom papa had been 
talking of the evils of the modern system of coaching, and 
the consequent bad scholarship of the present as compared 
with the past generation of students, seemed a little bored, 
and as soon as he could, abruptly changed the conversation 
by addressing us, and saying he supposed we often played 
croquet, as we had such a beautiful lawn for the purpose. 
The fact is, I dare say, that young men, when they are away 
from Cambridge, even if they leave expressly to study in 
some quiet spot, are desirous, when they are not actually 



54 THE READING PARTY 

reading, to cast off all thoughts on the subject, and to obtain 
relaxation of mind as well as relaxation of body. At all 
events, none of them ever alluded to the studies they were 
severally pursuing, except once or twice when papa happened 
to say that he supposed they were still hard at work, when 
they would look very serious, and reply, " I believe you ! " or 
talk of impending examinations being " awfully stiff," and of 
the necessity there was for " putting it on " (whatever that 
may be). 

I must not forget to tell you that although mamma was 
very much disappointed that no actual scions of the nobility 
were included in the reading party, yet she was somewhat 
relieved when she discovered through Mr. Fillip, that one of 
the young men, a Mr. O'Callaghan, was heir, if he could only 
prove something or other, to an extinct peerage ; so of course 
we had to pay him every attention, although he was very 
free and easy in his manners, and not at all prepossessing in 
appearance, being short, with red hair and freckles, and 
a squint : and as for music, I am sure he had none in his 
soul, for often, after I had been playing one of Thalberg's 
celebrated classical pieces, dashing up and down the piano, 
thundering out my bass notes, and twittering, shaking, and 
running away in the treble with such vehemence, force, fire, 
and execution, as made my heart palpitate to a degree, and 
when everybody else had said, " Oh, tha?ik you, most bril- 
liantly played," " What execution your daughter has, Mrs. 
Gushington," and so forth, this heir to an extinct peerage 
must needs ask me what the " chime " (as he used to call it) 
was. Of course I couldn't tell him. No one thinks of the 
"chune" in classical music. So I told mamma that I should 



THE READING PARTY 55 

give up the chance of becoming extinct Lady Ballyraggan of 
Ballyraggan Castle, Co. Donegal. 

However, by some means or other the reading party did 
contrive even to make our dull village a little lively. They 
resuscitated our cricket club, which after a lingering existence 
finally dissolved itself, when it was found that only three play- 
ing members belonged to it. They set to work to make the 
old ground fit for use, and induced several young farmers in 
the neighbourhood to take an interest in their proceedings ; 
and when George came down, they persuaded him to become 
captain of the village club. Indeed, he was soon as enthu- 
siastic as any of them, and was always going over to the 
Crown, where he often stopped so late that even mamma 
began to think he really did intend to follow the good 
example of the reading party, and study hard. In fact, he 
generally alleged as a reason for " looking up those fellows, : ' 
to use his own expression, that he wished to have Mr. Fillip's 
opinion upon such and such a passage. 

However, one morning while we were at breakfast, we 
tvere startled by Man- bringing in an enormous handbill, 
printed in large blue and red letters, which stated that on 
such a day a grand cricket match would be played between 
Mr. Fillip's eleven and the Mudbury cricket club. George 
then explained matters, by telling us that the reading party 
with three Mudbury men constituted Mr. Fillip's eleven, and 
that the Mudbury club would have the benefit of two profes- 
sionals who had been engaged expressly to come down for 
the match, so that it was to be quite a grand affair. 

Well, the day came. But I must tell you first, that some 
time previously it had become pretty generally known that 



56 THE READING PARTY 

after the match the reading party intended to give a dance 
in the large room at the Crown, which is never used but once 
a year when the Benefit club dines there ; but no one was to 
be actually invited until the morning of the day, so that it 
might seem to be an unpremeditated affair, arising out of the 
match. Wasn't that a nice idea ? so original too. We heard 
that the Jacksons, and the Smithsons, and Sir Robert and 
Lady Harston, and the Miss Harstons (three of them, and 
they have been to every ball in the neighbourhood for at 
least ten years), and all the notabilities were to be there : so 
when we drove to the ground on the day of the match we 
•were not at all surprised, although we pretended to be, when 
Mr. Fillip presented each of us with a little pink note asking 
us in the name of the reading party to the dance. Of course 
we said how delightful it was of them, and how they could 
have kept it so secret we couldn't think, and how pleased we 
should be to go, and so on. 

We were not a bit flustered, because we had settled how 
we should go before ; I in my green tarletan, and — but 
I will not anticipate, and I really must say something about 
.the match. 

The ground was already quite crowded when we arrived, 
and the reading party were what is called " in." George was 
bowling at one end, and one of the professionals at the 
other. 

I don't profess to understand cricket, nor why they should 
all cry " over," and yet go on again : but a Mr. Stanley — one 
of the reading party (such a handsome man), I don't think 
I mentioned him before, but he was always very attentive to 
me, and once, after I had sung " Should he Upbraid " 



THE READING PARTY 57 

(I dare say you know the song, I can do all the shakes and 
the twirls), he said he thought my voice was very like 
Patti's, only a little richer — came up to us, and walked with 
us round the ground, and explained matters so clearly that I 
quite comprehend many things I never understood before ; 
not that I can recollect every thing, it seems such an intricate 
game. I must not forget to tell you the riddle he asked us, 
and which he said he actually made impromptu. "Why 
should good men never play at cricket ? " We couldn't find 
it out, so he said he supposed we were " stumpt," like the 
last man who went out, and laughed as if he had said some- 
thing witty ; so of course we laughed, but what at I don't 
know to this moment. Well, what do you think the answer 
was? "Because it is a wicked sport," ' wicket'' you know, 
and ' wicked.' Now wasn't that good? I think a person 
must be clever to hit upon so original an idea. 

Certainly a cricket match is a pretty sight, and what 
picturesque attitudes the men assume ! When a ball was 
hit a long distance, one man would run as hard as he could 
after it, and the men at the wickets would run too, as if 
their life depended upon it, and yet others would, imme- 
diately the ball was hit, lie down on their faces or on their 
backs. Now that I can't understand ; I should have thought 
if all of them had run after it they would have been much 
more likely to catch it. Sometimes after the men at the 
wicket had been running very hard they would sit on their 
bats, looking, Helen said, like frogs, but I said more like 
young Apollos than frogs. Then the dresses too, how pictu- 
resque, some in blue jackets, others in red, and some in a 
mixture of all colours. Mr. Stanlev verv kindlv told me 



58 THE READING PARTY 

that every colour represented a different club or college, and 
some had such funny names, Perambulators, Harlequins, and 
Etceteras, that I thought at first he must have been chaffing 
me, but I found out afterwards he was not. 

Mr. Fillip's eleven made 195 runs, and when they were out, 
luncheon was ready in a large tent, and the cricketers would 
make the ladies join them, and a magnificent spread there 
was ; and Mr. Stanley was so kind in getting things for me, 
but after all, I had only a little fowl and ham, and some jelly. 
One always does get fowl, and ham, and jelly at luncheons 
and suppers, I don't know why. Perhaps it is because when 
one is asked what one will take, one never knows w r hat else 
to choose. I enjoyed the champagne most, it certainly was 
delicious. I drank three glasses, only think of that ! But it 
was all Mr. Stanley, who would insist upon my taking them. 
He certainly was most attentive, and when lunch was over he 
conducted me to the wickets, and took me to look at the ground, 
which he said was always the correct thing to do between the 
innings. He gave me so much information, told me what 
the bales were, and when I asked what a white line on the 
ground was, he said it was the " popping crease," and I an- 
swered, "what?" so then he replied, with a little emphasis, 
" the popping crease," and looked at me, so of course I laughed, 
and said, " Oh what funny names there are in cricket ! " In- 
deed, it was quite interesting the way he explained about 
twisters, and shooters, and lobbs (I wonder if that is spelt 
correctly) and all sorts of things. I could have listened much 
longer, as I am always desirous of gaining information where- 
ever I can, but soon a bell began to ring, and then we were 
obliged to leave the playing-ground, as the Mudbury club 



THE READING PARTY 59 

were going in, and a funny lot some of them looked ; there 
was one middle-aged man, very stout, who keeps a shop in 
the village, who amused us immensely trying to appear active 
by beginning to run after every ball, but always letting some 
one else get it. 

I asked George whether he thought his side would get 
more than 195, but he w r as in a very bad humour, and wanted 
to know why I asked him (as if he wasn't the captain of the 
club, and the proper person to ask), and muttering something 
about the professionals, went off to the wickets. I could not 
make out what he had said concerning the professionals, but 
it soon appeared that they were both tipsy, having taken too 
much at luncheon. However, they were obliged to go in, 
although everybody said it was perfectly disgraceful ; and 
what do you think ? — why the Mudbury club all went out for 
12. George was in a dreadful rage, and spoke to those un- 
fortunate professionals in a most unguarded way ; though I do 
not think he need have said much, for he got what he called 
a duck Qgg himself, and nobody scored any thing except the 
professionals, and the fat man, who made 4. 

After this they went on playing again, but we left, as we 
had to get our things ready, and prepare for the dance. I 
wore, as I said, my green tarletan, trimmed with beautiful 
cluny lace, and a wreath of green-and- white flowers on my 
head. It was generally considered very simple and pretty. 
I couldn't wear blue, you know, because it is such a bad 
candle-light colour. In fact, green — the green, I mean what 
is called the poisonous green — is the only colour that shows 
well at night. I don't believe a bit about its being poisonous. 
Certainly the dressmaker said it made her cough very much, 



60 THE READING PARTY 

and feel quite uncomfortable when she made the dress up, 
but, as I said, / who wore it never felt any inconvenience, 
which only shows how much more prone uneducated persons 
are to complain about trifles than gentlefolks. 

As the dance was to begin early, we were there about 
half-past nine, and found the room nearly full then. The 
moment we entered, who should come up to me but Mr. 
Stanley again, and insist upon my engaging myself to him 
for I don't know how many waltzes ; and certainly he did 
waltz beautifully, with so much ease and lightness, none of 
that tearing round the room at railroad speed, knocking 
up first against one couple then against another, as some 
young men, who fancy they dance well, do. I never could 
wish for a better partner than Mr. Stanley, although George 
dances very well ; but strange to say, and rather to my 
annoyance, I must confess, he never asked me to dance once 
the whole evening. That odious little man, Mr. O'Callaghan, 
must needs engage himself to me for a galop ; and I am sure 
the misery I was in the whole time, what with his treading on 
my toes and bumping me up against every couple we came 
near to, it would be impossible to describe. And what do 
you think ? why, he actually had the face to tell me, after the 
agony was over, that he had never learned any thing but a 
jig, and that he thought all dances were nothing but a kind 
of variation upon that ! 

We did not break up till it was quite light, half-past four 
I should think, and I danced at least eight times with Mr. 
Stanley. Mamma was very angry with me the next day, for, 
as she said, we know nothing whatever of him, and for all 
v/e know he may be as poor as a church mouse. I don't 






THE READING PARTY 61 

care a bit. But George was dreadful ; so unkind, and why 
I can't think ; he would scarcely speak to any one all day, and 
as for looking at me — but as if that was any consequence, 
or mattered to me at all. 

What a thing it is to have a Heart, and that Heart a sus- 
ceptible one ! I must fly to my Tupper for consolation (I 
always read poetry when I feel low spirited). What says 
the gentle bard ? 

''Jealousy is the Heartburn of the Soul (how true!), and 
yields to the mild Alkali of Affection." 



WOMAN'S WORK 

A LAS ! what sad remembrances throng my breast as I put 
*■ -*■ pen to paper ! You may recollect, perhaps, the circum- 
stances which caused me to have recourse to what has been so 
sweetly termed, the " soothing sympathy " of Tupper. Poor 
Mr. Stanley ! They are all gone. The reading party, I mean. 
And George too, he is away, I don't even know where he is. 
It is very ungrateful of him not to tell me. " Mistaken in my 
disposition," he said. I am sure I have been mistaken in his. 
However, I won't give way, I declare I won't. We are not 
such dependent creatures as men think us. I intend to show 
a little spirit and to stand up for my sex. Not in a strong- 
minded way, of course, but still with firmness. I am afraid 
you have been led to infer from the general tone of my 
writings that I am one of your light, frivolous girls, who have 
no idea of any thing but pleasure, and show an utter dis- 
taste for serious work. Now this is not the case ; and I am 
determined that the subject of this essay, and the manner in 
which I shall treat it, shall disabuse you of any false inferences 
you may have drawn from remarks penned in lighter, I will 
not say happier hours ; but I certainly do think, now that all 
our young friends have left, and that George has taken his 



WOMAN'S WORK 63 

departure in this unaccountable manner, our naturally dull 
village never looked duller. It is enough to make one go 
melancholy mad, or, at all events, commit suicide, if it wasn't 
for the idea of an inquest on one's body. 

But this is a relapse into weakness, culpable weakness. 
What is George or any one to me now ? I am resolved, 
positively determined, to be an old maid, in fact I have a very 
good mind to cut off my ring finger, and then one couldn't be 
married, you know. But I must not let my thoughts run on 
in this way. Work — woman's work is my theme, and I must 
treat it as its importance deserves. 

I dare say you fancy, now, that by woman's work I mean 
tatting, and crocheting, and so forth, whereas I mean nothing 
of the kind. Of course those things are work, but not real 
hard work ; when I talk of woman's work, I mean what 
women can do for people's advantage or good, so that I in- 
clude some kind of needlework, such as making flannel- 
petticoats, and night-caps, and things for poor persons ; and 
as I hate plain sewing above every thing, I force myself to do 
it on purpose, because I don't intend in my unhappy condition 
to consult my own pleasure, but rather to go against my 
inclination in every way. Up to the present time I have 
devoted myself to shirts, and when I first began I thought 
I never should master the art of making them. However 
after a little practice I became a pretty fair hand at that 
kind of work. Indeed it is much simpler than ycu would 
fancy. You take a breadth of calico almost twice the length 
of the article ; you then double it nearly in the middle, but 
not quite, and sew up the sides to within about six inches of 
each end, leaving two holes for the arms at the doubled end. 



64 WOMAN'S WORK 

When this is done it looks something like a bag, in the 
bottom of which you must now cut a slit for the neck, and 
another longer slit at right angles to the last, to make the 
front. And having done this, you have formed what may be 
termed the nucleus of your shirt, and have only to put 
in the binders round the arm-holes, insert the sleeves, gores, 
and gussets, gather the neck and wrists, sew on the bands 
and collar, stitch and hem, finish up with buttons and button- 
holes, and there you are. Of course I have had a few. failures 
in the way of excessively long sleeves, and preposterously high 
collars ; and by these peculiarities my first essays in shirt- 
making may be recognized any Sunday in Mudbury Church, 
for the recipients of my bounty seem to take a pride in 
rendering these defects as conspicuous as possible, as if they 
thought amateur needlework was thereby honourably dis- 
tinguished from the productions of professed sempstresses. 
One old man in particular wears his shirt-collar stuck up so 
straight and stiff all round his neck, especially at the back, 
that it is with the greatest difficulty he can keep his hat on 
his head at all, indeed he can only manage to do so by tilting 
it very much over his forehead. 

Then, besides plain sewing, another branch of woman's 
work consists of course in visiting poor persons, and giving 
them good advice about family management, and so forth. 
Not that I wish you to suppose I am just now about to begin 
such work. I have always made a point of seeing people in 
the village who don't live far off, and taking them little 
presents. In fact, we have a regular set, chiefly clean old 
women and children, whom I and my sisters take great 
interest in ; and to see the grateful way in which the 



WOMAN'S WORK 65 

recipients take their weekly allowance of castor-oil and 
Gregory powder, is perfectly enchanting. I can assure you 
I am never deaf to the voice of distress, and this very 
summer I left a game of croquet, actually on the eve 
of victory, to carry a bottle of tincture of rhubarb to a 
poor man who had broken his neck in falling from a hay- 
rick. Mind, I do not take any merit to myself, because in the 
ordinary way I should have hesitated before I disturbed a 
set, but under the circumstances I felt justified in acting in 
the prompt manner I did. 

Papa, who I will say is dreadfully old-fashioned in some 
things, only allows us to prescribe the simple remedies I 
have mentioned, otherwise I should be willing, with the aid 
of " Graham's Domestic Medicine" to extend my sphere of 
operations, for I have quite a mission (as our low-church 
friends would call it) that way, and look forward with delight 
to the time when I shall have become a Sister of Mercy, for, 
as I said, I have given up all thoughts of any thing matri- 
monial, which is really a great relief, especially when one is 
so fully determined as I am ; besides, I consider the habit 
and cap becoming rather than not. I sadly want papa to 
establish a Home, only, as he says, we have no one to put in 
it. Still I think if the thing were once set on foot we might 
get somebody, and then I should be matron, and live such 
a nice quiet life, just what I should thoroughly enjoy, and 
Homes seem all the fashion now. Poor George, I wonder 
what he would say. But I may spare my pity, for it wouldn't 
surprise me in the least to hear that he had gone into a 
Monastery out of mere spite. 

How one's thoughts do wander, and carry one quite away 

F 



66 WOMAN'S WORK 

from one's subject ! It was a long time, as you may imagine, 
before I could accustom myself to enter the nasty, dirty 
cottages in which labourers and indeed all poor persons seem 
to delight ; and then they or their children were always get- 
ting ill at such awkward times, generally in wet weather or in 
the winter, without considering that the mud would get over 
one's goloshes every time one went out of doors. I think 
I must have lost at least three pairs one very bad winter. 
I wish somebody would invent a better kind of overshoe, for 
those made of indian-rubber cause one to slip about if it is in 
the least degree muddy. In fact, I very nearly sprained my 
ancle once, but providentially George was with me, and 
caught hold of me just in time, for it is no joke for a girl to 
sprain her ancle in the winter, when so many dances are 
going on. But I forgot. Of course when I am matron of a 
Home, or a Sister of Mercy, I must not think of dancing, so 
after all it wouldn't matter spraining one's ancle, which would 
be an advantage I quite overlooked, so I need not adopt 
pattens, as I once seriously thought of doing, and really 
should have done, only mamma said they would spoil my 
figure, and make me look just like a market-woman. But 
after all, what does one's figure matter when one is dressed 
in a long black serge robe, and I am determined to have one 
made as soon as possible, for there is nothing like beginning 
work in earnest, one must feel so sober and serious-minded, 
dressed in what I should formerly have called such an out- 
landish fashion. 

I wonder if they have croquet-grounds in nunneries, be- 
cause, you know, lots of young women are put into convents, 
just as one would send a girl to a school where there were no 



WOMAN'S WORK 67 

vacations if she were at all troublesome, or to get her out of 
the way of fortune-hunters, supposing she had money. There 
would then appear to be no impropriety in persons so placed 
playing croquet, since they do not for the most part intend to 
take the veil. And yet one would imagine the game, under 
such circumstances, would be somewhat flat, like sisterly 
salutes, which Shakespeare terms, in that beautiful and well- 
known passage in the Midsummer Night's Dream, " insipid 
things like sandwiches of veal," and so they are, I think, 
compared with — but it will never do for a desolated soul to 
recall soft impeachments, especially when one hopes with all 
the fervour of youth's smouldering aspirations (that's a well- 
turned sentence, isn't it ?) to end one's days as the matron of 
an Orphanage, a Home for incurables or little boys, or per- 
haps a workhouse ; for although I am quite determined that 
my future life shall be one of asceticism, yet I maybe allowed 
a little time to consider under what conditions it shall be 
spent. 

Sometimes I fancy I should like to take charge of children, 
for in my worldly days I have kissed and dandled such a 
number of babies (in public one always does that sort of 
thing — it pleases the mothers, and if gentlemen should be 
looking on leads them to think what a nice, affectionate, and 
domestic wife one would make), that I have become quite 
skilful. In fact, I used to practise upon the cottagers' babies, 
so that I might not appear awkward in handling the little 
darlings whenever I had to do so in company, at a christen- 
ing, for instance. Unfortunately, I let one drop on a stone 
floor (it was only a poor person's child, but I am sure she 
could not have made more fuss about it if she had been a 

F 2 



68 WOMAN'S WORK 

fine lady — indeed, as fashions go, I believe she made more), 
and the disagreeable little thing must needs grow up with an 
enormous forehead, water on the brain the doctors said, but 
the mother would have it that the fall was the cause of it ; so 
after that papa insisted I should leave the babies alone. Still 
I have learnt a good deal. For instance, when a child per- 
sists in crying, or, in the language of the nursery, becomes 
fractious, all one has to do is to turn it upside down, and 
thump it on the back — you can have no idea how quiet all 
children will become under this treatment. At first they cry 
louder than ever, but after a time they give a kind of a gasp, 
and when most of their breath has been judiciously thumped 
out, they cease altogether. 

I am convinced that I should get on admirably among 
poor people, for I can listen without weariness to a long 
catalogue of " misfortins " or bodily ailings, which is a quality 
all lady visitors to country folks should possess; for be 
the malady ever so trifling, the sufferer, if one of the lower 
orders, always seems to take the greatest delight in detailing 
the minutest symptoms, and appears disappointed if you do 
not feel, or at all events feign, an interest in the recital equal 
to his or hers. I succeed best with women and children : the 
men puzzle me, for I don't know what to say to them, nor 
they to me, and they look so uncomfortable and so unable to 
take care of their limbs, or to decide what to do with them, 
or where to place them while one is in the house, that I am 
always glad to find only the women at home ; for although I 
am sometimes at a loss what to say even to them, yet by 
inquiring after their health, which I have ascertained by 
experience to be generally " middlin," I can, as a rule, broach 



WOMAN'S WORK Co 

a subject upon which they can be very communicative 
without requiring one to do more than assent with a voice 
of sympathy to the mournful tale. But, as I said before, 
babies form my piece de resistance, I begin by guessing them 
to be twice as old as they appear to be, which flatters the 
mothers, for when I am told the real age I have only to 
reply, " Dear me, what a remarkably fine child ! " to put myself 
on good terms with the whole family, and on subsequent 
visits I need but observe how the child grows, and that it 
really begins to take notice, the darling, to preserve the 
favourable impression created by my first remarks. 

As a rule, therefore, by praising a baby, one ingratiates 
oneself with its parents, but as there are exceptions to all 
rules, so there are to this one, as I shall proceed to point out. 
When I began to make acquaintance with poor people I used 
to be startled now and then by coming across certain indi- 
viduals who could not only bear the loss of friends and 
relatives with the most philosophical resignation, but even 
regard it with a kind of complacent satisfaction that, until I 
became accustomed to it, used actually to shock me. But 
when I pondered over the matter, I felt how wrong I was 
to blame people so happily constituted as to be able, although 
totally ignorant of the manners and customs of polite society, 
to 

"Attain the wise indifference of the wise. 98 

I will give an instance in point to explain my meaning. A 
poor woman whom I was in the habit of visiting, lost her 
husband rather suddenly, and was left with a young family, 
and among them a baby a few w^eeks old. I thought it my 



yo WOMAN'S WORK 

duty to go and see her, and offer the usual condolences suited 
to the occasion. So I went well primed with common-places 
on the uncertainty of human life, and the duty of bearing up 
under affliction ; I told her that it was what we must all come 
to, that every thing was for the best, and so forth, when, much 
to my surprise, instead of crying in the corner of her apron, 
as I had expected she would have done, she brightened up, 
and replied quite cheerfully, " Oh yes, Miss, I know as it's 
all right, and I'm much happier, Miss, now Bill's gone, for he 
was alius a messing with the children like, and I do think 
the baby won't be long a follerin of him, for it's most un- 
common weakly ; just look at his little arms, Miss, not a mossle 
of flesh on 'em, is there ?" I was wonderfully taken with 
the woman ! No mere conventional display of grief, but such 
a spirit of self-reliance ! I saw her frequently on subsequent 
occasions, and she never failed to express a pious wish that 
it " might please the Lord to take the baby," whose emaciated 
condition she would with a smile of gratification bid me 
notice, and certainly the poor little thing was nothing but 
a bag of bones, for I have every reason to believe that the 
mother, in order to put no hindrance in the way of Providence, 
was rather chary in supplying it with nourishment. However, 
notwithstanding her amiable contrivance for sending it to a 
" better place," (to use her own words,) the baby, out of mere 
spite, I have no doubt, managed to survive, and is now a 
strapping child. 

I must not forget to say that I have a great notion of effect- 
ing what I call a reformation in cottage economy. So few 
poor persons have any idea of real comfort, of neatness and 
cleanliness. I don't think I ever went into a house where 



WOMAN'S WORK 71 

the inmate did not apologize for the things being " all about," 
or u in a muddle." But as I have frequently said, " Why are 
your things 'all about V why don't you put them in their 
places ? It is all nonsense to say you have no places to put 
them in ; you should make places." And yet, would you believe 
it ? these very persons, after I had left, would grumble, and 
wish me to be in their position that they might see how I 
would act then ! Very differently, I can tell them. Instead 
of allowing every thing to go to rack and ruin, and complain- 
ing of the landlord, I should exert myself, lay out a little 
money, buy comfortable sheets and blankets, always wear 
good strong boots and shoes in wet weather, repair my broken 
chairs and rickety tables, contrive to fix up two or three 
convenient cupboards here and there, and keep every thing 
neat, clean, and tidy. And yet I can assure you that I have 
been actually laughed at for these very suggestions, and asked 
where the money to buy the blankets and shoes, and repair 
the furniture, is to come from. Why, by saving their wages, 
to be sure. Even a penny a day comes to more than five 
and twenty shillings a year, without counting Sundays ; and 
what is a penny? why one pays that for every letter one 
posts, without so much as thinking about the cost. Yes, 
when I divulge my entire plan of cottage economy, it will 
rather surprise some of your so-called philanthropists, I 
fancy. 

For one branch of woman's work — visiting poor people — 
I am evidently fitted, since, as you will have already learned 
from my remarks, I have not only some practical knowledge 
of the subject, but have actually devised a plan for the social 
improvement of the lower orders. 



72 WOMAN'S WORK 

For the sorrow-stricken soul, this kind of work is eminently 
suited. In future years, perhaps, when a light scar shall be 
all that is left to mark the spot where the wide wound of 
agonizing anguish now gapes open-mouthed on the lonely 
sufferer's heart, I may be able to check the emotions that for 
the hour swell my breast ; I may sympathize with the young, 
and regard with complacency, while I endeavour to regulate 
by my advice, those flirtations in which I once indulged, but 
which I now renounce. I may then perhaps assume the 
normal position of an old maid ; take an affectionate interest 
in " engaged ones ;" chaperone the beautiful to balls ; extol 
the amiable dispositions of the plain and the poor ; and use 
my best endeavours to prevent the rich from throwing them- 
selves away upon the penniless. At present, recent occur- 
rences which I need not particularize, cause me to waver 
between suicide, a convent, or a workhouse (as matron). 
Could any of my readers tell me which is considered in 
society the most fashionable way of committing the first; 
how I could obtain admittance into the second ; and whether 
I should be able to find a third without a casual ward ? 

I have just heard that George is staying at General 
Drumble's. You can't think what horrid flirts those girls 
(the Miss Drumbles, I mean) are, they are always on the 
look out, and Mrs. Drumble is such a managing woman. I 
don't wonder he never told us where he was; I have no 
patience with him. 



PHILOSOPHERS AND PRACTICAL 
PHILOSOPHY 

T~\0 you know I am perfectly ashamed to confess it, but up 
*^ to a comparatively recent period I had quite mistaken 
notions concerning philosophers. I used always to fancy that 
they were people who lived in the Middle Ages, and employed 
most of their time in picking up stones, a race of geologists 
in advance of their generation, as it were. However, some 
time ago I heard papa talking about a Mr. Mill, whom he 
styled, much to my surprise, for I thought all that sort of 
people were extinct, a philosopher. So as I am naturally 
of an inquiring mind, I said, " Papa, dear, what is a 
philosopher?" and he replied rather unsatisfactorily, for I 
must say poor papa is not very quick in apprehending the 
drift of a question. " Philosophers, my dear, what do you 
want to know about philosophers, eh V " Oh !" I answered, 
u I want to know who they are, that's all." So then he 
hummed and hawed, and said, " Philosophers, well you see, 
my dear, philosophers are — exactly, you know, and I am sure 
I don't see why you should trouble your head about such 
matters, far too deep for you, my dear;" and then he began 
to rustle the newspaper, which I knew was a sign that he did 
not wish to be questioned any more. However, I was 



74 PHILOSOPHERS 

determined I would have some answer, so I persisted, " But, 
papa, you have not told me who philosophers are now." 
Then when he saw it was of no use trying to put me off, he 
accepted the situation, threw one leg over the other, laid the 
paper down, placed the tips of his fingers together, and said, 
in a kind of judicial way, which he always adopts when he 
intends to dispose of a question finally, " My dear girl, I am 
exceedingly glad to find that you are possessed with a laudable 
desire to improve yourself, and to acquire knowledge, and as 
it will always be a pleasure to me to afford you any assistance 
in following the promptings of so worthy an ambition, I will 
readily furnish you with the information you require. The 
word Philosopher, my dear Angelina, is derived from that 
ancient language the Greek, and signifies in our tongue a 
lover of wisdom. And now I hope you are satisfied." Of 
course I was obliged to be, but I was not a bit. A lover of 
wisdom indeed, I thought all people should wish to be that. 
So then I went to George (this was before our unhappy 
estrangement), and said, " George, I want to ask you some- 
thing." " Very well," he answered, "what is it ?" "I dare say 
you will think me very stupid," I said, " but I don't mind 
that, and you will be a good boy and tell me, won't you V 
"Yes, if I can," he replied, "but what is it V " Oh, I want 
to know, please, who philosophers are ; I have been asking 
papa, but all he can tell me is that they are lovers of wisdom, 
and that doesn't do at all ; I dare say you can explain who they 
are much better." George seemed rather puzzled at first. At 
last he said, " Why, you see, philosophers are people who think 
a great deal, and who look at every thing in the abstract." 
" Oh indeed ! " I answered, " but what do you mean by the 



AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY 75 

abstract ?" " That is simple enough," he replied ; " you have 
only to take an adjective, begin it with a capital letter, place 
the definite article before it, and turn it into an indefinite 
noun, and there you have your abstract; for instance, Beauti- 
ful, adjective with a big B. The Beautiful, a noun and the 
abstract required ; nothing can be plainer than that." " Oh 
no, of course not," I said ; for I often speak in that way my- 
self, "but is that all philosophers do ?" "Well, not being a 
philosopher myself," he replied, " I can't exactly say ; but I 
should think you understand who philosophers are after all 
this explanation?" "Oh yes," I said, "of course I do ; but 
still—" " Still what V said George. " Oh, nothing !" I an- 
swered, " I suppose that must do, and I am very much obliged 
to you for telling me so much." 

I was not quite satisfied after all with the information I 
had gained concerning philosophers, namely, that they are 
lovers of wisdom, who look at things in the abstract ; so I 
ventured to peep into some books in the library on meta- 
physics, and logic, and mind, and so forth, to see if I could 
not discover something more definite for myself. I was quite 
surprised to find at first how easy it all was — the mind, you 
know, for the books were principally about that. I learnt 
that the mind was divided as it were into a number of parts, 
such as memory, reflection, abstraction, and consciousness, 
and that all our knowledge was gained from ideas of things, 
that is from hearing, seeing, and touching things. When I 
had learnt thus much, I took up another book, and found 
that all I had read before was wrong, though why I could 
not understand ; but as the writers who said so were generally 
supposed to be very clever, I agreed with them, and took in 



7(5 PHILOSOPHERS 

their company a rapid survey of mental modifications, which 
appear to have superseded the mental divisions I mentioned 
above. By the time I had completed this, I made a grand 
discovery respecting mind, which I shall generously present 
to the public for the especial behoof of philosophers ; this was, 
that there is a state of mind of which none of the theorists 
seem to have had the faintest apprehension ; this state or 
modification of mind, for I suppose I must so term it, I have 
named mental mystification ; and I was so overwhelmed with 
the magnitude of the discovery I had made, that for some 
time I was unable to advance any further in my philosophical 
studies. Indeed I began to fancy I should have to give them 
up altogether, and rest satisfied with having rendered this 
one valuable contribution to the science of metaphysics. 
However, greatly to my delight, I found on again applying 
myself after a short interval of rest, that the moment this 
mental mystification was induced, the mind became in the 
best possible frame for carrying on philosophical investiga- 
tions, a circumstance which I conjecture may be remotely 
connected with the well-known fact, that to understand a 
writer's arguments thoroughly, it is necessary that one's mind 
should be in the same state of lucidity as his at the time 
when he placed them on paper. However, whether this be 
the case or not, it is evident that to pursue any philosophical 
researches with success the mind must first be brought to 
assume this peculiar modification. This I found to be a 
very simple matter. The mere opening of a metaphysical 
book would occasionally induce this state of mental mystifi- 
cation ; but at all times I could bring it on by reading two or 
three pages in succession rapidly, and without stopping to 



AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY 77 

consider their meaning, after which I would continue my 
scientific inquiries with uniform success. In this way I 
satisfactorily mastered the philosophy of the Unconditioned, 
the Infinite, and the Absolute, which before I made my 
grand discovery I had been totally unable to comprehend. 
On the whole I may shortly sum up the valuable results 
of my study of the works of the most learned philosophers of 
modern times as follows. 

I now know that mind is different from matter — that mind 
is every thing and matter nothing. That every body thinks, 
but that nobody thinks about any thing, like the jolly (and 
philosophical) young waterman, who "row'd along, thinking 
of nothing at all;" that the mind is always conscious, but 
is never conscious of any thing ; that all our conventional 
notions concerning seeing, hearing, and touching, &c., may 
be placed with fallacies long since exploded, since mental 
modifications account for all the phenomena of the so-called 
senses ; that men and women ought properly to call them- 
selves Egos, and the rest of the world Non-Egos ; that al- 
though in practice it is found convenient to assume the 
existence of a material universe, in theory such an assump- 
tion is rather in the way than not ; that idiots are the most 
truly philosophical, and lunatics the most truly reasonable of 
beings, and that nobody is every body, and every thing is 
nothing. 

I was exceedingly gratified, as may be imagined, at having 
gained in so comparatively simple a manner so much know- 
ledge of such an abstruse subject. I was a little proud too, 
I confess, and felt very much inclined to show off before 
papa as a sort of gentle intimation that he had better be 



78 PHILOSOPHERS 

careful in future, and reflect before he decided that philosophy 
was " too deep " for me. Besides, my mind revolted from the 
notion of perpetuating vulgar ideas, by adopting the custo- 
mary language of everyday life. I should have liked to have 
introduced some of that philosophical accuracy in thought 
and expression, with which a course of scientific study had 
thoroughly imbued me, but somehow or other, I never could 
bring my mind into the proper state of mystification requisite 
for treating commonplace matters in a philosophical manner ; 
indeed, I often found myself, from the force of habit, relapsing 
into old-fashioned and erroneous modes of speech, just as if 
I had never studied philosophy at all, and talking in the most 
ordinary way of chairs and tables, and so forth, totally 
oblivious of the fact that such common objects have no 
existence in the Hamiltonian theory of the Unconditioned. 
However, I was determined I would make an effort to treat 
an ordinary subject metaphysically ; so, one day, when poor 
papa was laid up with the gout, I remember now ; . it was in 
Lent, because he always has an attack about that time of 
the year, I was saying how sorry I was, and I hoped he would 
be better soon, and so on (the usual remarks one makes 
to invalids, you know), and then thinking it would be a good 
opportunity to try the experiment, I added, "Is it gout 
in the abstract, papa?" "No, my dear," he replied, "in 
the great toe." I was shocked beyond measure, but I al- 
ways fancied papa had very little sense of the dignity of 
psychology. 

After this rebuff, for I felt it as such, I was forced to give 
up practical philosophy, and I very soon found my theoretical 
knowledge slipping from my memory for want of a kindred 



AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY 79 

soul with whom I might discuss the Infinite and the Absolute. 
I discovered too that society does not appreciate philosophy, 
at all events in a girl, and that I should run the chance of 
being considered too clever by eligible members of the 
opposite sex, if I appeared to have any real knowledge of 
such a subject, so I thought it the wisest plan to keep my 
metaphysical learning to myself. If it had been less accurate, 
I should not have hesitated to display it, for men don't mind 
a girl who pretends to be " up " in some deep subject of 
which she has in truth but the merest smattering. They 
will most likely consider, for men are so conceited, that she 
has applied herself to its study with the object of pleasing 
them by selecting something suited to their superior in- 
tellectual capacities, while all dread of rivalry will be 
dismissed from their minds the moment she opens her 
mouth, since she cannot fail every time she utters a sentence 
to commit a multitude of unconscious blunders. 

You will remember that the reason of my turning my 
attention to philosophy was a desire to ascertain what 
kind of people philosophers were, neither papa nor George 
being able to give me much information upon the point. I 
cannot say that I satisfied my curiosity, for although I read 
many philosophical works, of their authors I learnt but little. 
I was therefore rather glad when papa one day lately began 
talking again about Mr. Mill, the modern philosopher. When 
he spoke of him first, it was at the time of a general election, 
for I remember papa observing that, although he was a 
staunch Conservative, he was not sorry that Mr. Mill, who it 
appears is a dreadful Radical, had been elected member of 
Parliament for Westminster; because as a philosopher he 



80 PHILOSOPHERS 

would not be likely to be led away by mere party cries, but 
would as it were stand aloof from the " mob of the House of 
Commons," and occupy an exalted position by himself, where 
he would sit in silent majesty, surveying with calm philosophic 
eye the unpatriotic struggles for place and power carried on 
beneath him, in which he, in the pride of his stupendous 
intellect, would disdain to take a part. Papa went on to say 
that Mr. Mill would in all probability speak but seldom, and 
then only when some question of vital importance to the 
nation was being debated, and that when he rose an attentive 
senate would listen in hushed admiration to the words of 
wisdom that would be distilled from his lips. Although 
nominally an advanced Liberal, he (papa) did not think 
Mr. Mill would be likely to display any violent party-spirit, 
since it would be of greater importance both to him and 
to the House, that he should preserve a philosophical 
impartiality than that he should exhibit a bias in any 
direction, for the sake of supporting one side. Calculating 
therefore upon that discretion which is inherent in the nature 
of every truly philosophic mind, papa considered that it 
would be Mr. Mill's office, when he condescended to speak 
in the House to intervene in a kind of judicial capacity, 
and to deliver an opinion based upon the highest meta- 
physical principles, to which all would give a willing 
adhesion, as if aware that it came from a superior being, 
who dwelt in a region of eternal thought. And more than 
this, he had such confidence in the man as a philosopher, 
that he felt convinced that he (Mr. Mill) would exercise 
his influence and authority with the sole object of allaying 
party strife, soothing the passions of contending foes, and 



AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY 81 

calming the animosities of faction, so that in the end he 
might transform the House from a bloody battle-field into 
a peaceful Arcadian retreat. 

However, in a very short time after papa had expressed 
himself to this effect, he began to grumble excessively when 
any allusion was made to parliamentary affairs, and occa- 
sionally to come out with some very violent remarks upon 
the folly of sending people into parliament who looked at 
every thing through a pair of yellow spectacles, and set up for 
being regenerators of mankind before they knew any thing of 
practical life. Of course this was all Greek to us, and it 
struck me that papa's mind had in all probability entered 
that peculiar phase of mystification to which I have already 
alluded, and that if we waited patiently we might expect to 
see the matter elucidated. And so it was, for hearing papa 
utter Mr. Mill's name with special emphasis, and in accents 
of disapprobation, as he sat reading the Times one evening, 
I ventured in a conciliatory tone to say, " What has the poor 
gentleman done, papa dear, that you should speak in such 
an angry way of him?" "Done !" replied papa with great 
vehemence, " what has he done ? Why every thing that he 
ought not to have done, to be sure." " Dear me," I said, 
"what a pity! I thought he was going to turn out some- 
thing so wonderful." " Humph." That was all the answer 
papa vouchsafed to give me. The fact is he knew he had 
made a mistake in his opinion of Mr. Mill, but he would 
not admit it, for he cannot bear ever to acknowledge that he 
has been in the wrong. But when he had become a little 
calmer, he introduced the subject again of his own accord, 
and gave us certainly a very shocking account of Mr. Mill's 

G 



82 PHILOSOPHERS 

behaviour. Instead of taking his stand, as we supposed he 
would have done, upon some lofty eminence supremely in- 
different to the petty squabbles of the inferior beings by 
whom he was surrounded, it seems that he allied himself 
with an individual whose name I cannot bring myself to 
write, so odious has his conduct, as reported to us by papa, 
caused him to appear in our eyes. Suffice it to say that the 
very mildest epithet papa ever applies to him is that of 
Brummagem Brutus, and when he does so, he says, quoting 
some dreadfully vulgar American writer, that he is •' com- 
binin morril truth with phrases sech as strikes ;" that he 
occupied the same seat with him, and not content with thus 
debasing himself, soon began to grovel with the lowest of 
the low, and, in league with men who had not the slightest 
claim to be considered fit company for a philosopher, used his 
best endeavours to inflame the angry passions of the multi- 
tude, and all this under the specious pretext of helping the 
working man. When we heard this dreadful account, of 
course we cried "What a wretch !" but papa, after pondering 
for a short time, said, " Angelina, my dear, will you fetch me 
Mr. Mill's Political Economy out of the library % I think the 
author viewed the working man with less favour when he 
wrote that treatise than he does now." I brought the book, 
and papa opened it, and soon found the passage he required. 
" These," said he, " are Mr. Mill's words : ' As soon as any 
idea of equality enters the mind of an ordinary English 
working man, his head is turned by it. When he ceases to 
be servile, he becomes insolent.' Book I. chap. vii. § 5. 
This is the fifth edition of the book, published only five years 
ago. I suppose Mr. Mill did not suspect, when he penned 



AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY 83 

the sentence I have read, that he would ever require to be 
carried into Parliament on a working man's back. It will be 
more respectful to his new friends if in future editions he 
expunge the passage. However," added papa, with rather 
an awkward attempt at jocosity, " our philosophic friend has 
just indulged in a new vagary. What do you suppose he 
wishes to do now ? Why to give the franchise to women." 
I did not make any remark upon this, for I thought I should 
like to know what the franchise was first, as I have never any 
objection to being given any thing, that is to say, if it is wortn 
having. Presently papa continued, and said what folly it 
was, and how silly people must be to imagine it would do 
women any good to give them a vote ; so then I knew that a 
vote and the franchise were the same, and I must say I do not 
agree with papa. Why should not women have a vote as well 
as men 1 It is, I think, quite a redeeming feature in Mr. Mill's 
character, that of his own accord he should exert himself to pro- 
cure something for us for which we never so much as asked, or 
as far as most of us are concerned, even so much as thought 
of. Now, however, that the question has been forced upon our 
notice, I plainly see to what a condition of degradation the 
self-styled lords of the creation have reduced our sex, by 
depriving them of the inestimable privilege of voting for 
members of Parliament. It is worse than slavery, I positively 
declare, and I for one shall never be satisfied until the odious 
restriction is removed. How useful too, the privilege would 
be to us when we did get it ! They say that at the next 
general election young Topsawyer, Sir Thomas Topsawyer's 
eldest son, will come forward and contest the county, upon 
Conservative principles. Only fancy if such were to be the 

G 2 



84 PHILOSOPHERS 

case, what an advantage it would be to me to have a vote ! 
" Miss Gushington, I am come to solicit your vote and interest, 
may I depend upon your support at the coming election?" 
There, that is what he would say, or something similar. Of 
course I should simper and hesitate, and declare that I had not 
made up my mind ; that my views were certainly Conservative, 
and that I should wish to support a Conservative candidate, but 
that the fact of the matter was, I was not quite satisfied as to 
the soundness of his principles, — would he kindly state what 
they were a little more fully? Whereupon we should have a most 
interesting tete a tete, entirely confidential, the upshot of which 
would be that I should allow him to go away with the im- 
pression that I was a girl who knew how to appreciate a man 
of sense, and was only hindered by conscientious scruples 
from at once promising to vote for him. Well, a few days after 
such an interview, I should expect to receive, from a perfectly 
unknown source, a magnificent solitaire, or a handsome brace- 
let, emeralds and diamonds, I am so fond of emeralds, which 
I should accept of course, since, not knowing whence it came, 
I could not return it. Then a short time before the day of 
election, young Topsawyer would come and canvas me again, 
and I would tell him candidly that I had made up my mind 
to support him, on condition that he would pledge his word 
to bring in, with all convenient speed, a Bill for the better 
Observance of Leap Year, and also give his vote in favour 
of the immediate Abolition of Old Bachelors, or, at all events, 
for the establishment by the Government of a Joint Asylum 
for them and for Old Maids ; and when he had agreed to 
'these conditions, I would promise him my vote. 

Then, again, what a hold over their husbands the posses- 



AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY S5 

sion of the franchise would give to married women. When 
one's husband assumed as a matter of course that one would 
vote for Mr. So-and-so. how conveniently one could urge that 
one had nothing to wear, and that one could never think of 
going to the poll less richly dressed than Mrs. Such-an-one. an 
opposition voter. All that vulgar locking up in public-houses 
of the free and independent electors, too. would be effectually 
done away with] for surely if a trip to Paris, say. free of all 
expense, could not raise in one's breast a conscientious ob- 
jection to avail oneself of one's electoral privileges, where 
would be the use of a conscience at all ? 

But sett::::; aside these substantial gains, with what a 
halo of romance would the extension of the franchise to 
women invest the political world I In the present degraded 
condition of our sex. a girl who should confess to a know- 
ledge of politics, would without fail surer an immediate 
depreciation in matrimonial value, but were Mr. Mill's 
proposal accepted modern courtship might actually be based 
upon political principles. To explain myself more clearly. 
There still exist, I am compelled to admit, a number of 
g people, who. looking for what they term happiness 
in the marriage state, endeavour, before they fix upon 
lers for life, to ascertain whether the objects of their 
affection possess congenial dispositions, good temper, 
amiability, and so forth. Now I think all sensible people 
wall agree with me, that such a course of procedure can never 
effect the desired end, since an individual's conduct before 
marriage is no son of criterion as to what it will be after 
marriage A woman may be all smiles, and a man all 
suavity during courtship, and yet when married they may 



86 PHILOSOPHERS 

live a cat-and-dog life together. But substitute for con- 
geniality of disposition similarity of political opinions, and 
you have at once an infallible test. Moreover, a girl would 
have some chance of moulding a man's political opinions 
to hers by persuasion and argument, whereas she might 
waste a lifetime in endeavouring to turn a bad temper into a 
good one ; for political opinions are very easily changed, not 
so natural dispositions, or even acquired bad habits. What 
a triumph, too, it would be for a girl to have transformed a 
rabid Radical, for instance, into a Constitutional- Liberal, or 
a Liberal into a Liberal- Conservative ! 

Again, take the case of an engaged couple. How do such 
persons act under the present system ? Why they pledge 
themselves in the most solemn way to write to one another 
a long letter every day. And what do they write about ? 
Love ! A man's love-letters I admit are in a general way 
remarkable for exhibiting an extraordinary power of con- 
densing a vast amount of affection into a small space, but 
a girl will frequently ramble over page after page in the 
most senseless manner. And what a degradation I say it is 
that a girl should be compelled, for want of other topics, 
to fill a long love-letter with nothing but love ! Give women 
votes, and all this will be altered. The man will treat his 
sweetheart to an exhaustive review, say on Foreign affairs, 
and she will reply with an elaborate essay, pointing out how 
advantageously the profession of a policy of neutrality enables 
a nation to shirk its responsibilities. The absurdities of love- 
letters, which, as the papers say, so often "convulse the court" 
in a breach of promise case, will no longer be perpetrated. 
Lovers, instead of corresponding under such ridiculous names 



AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY 87 

as Tiddlepops and Tootleums, will assume some parliamentary 
pseudonym. The man will sign himself Gladstone. say, and the 
woman Walpole. When they wish to send affectionate remem- 
brances to one another, they will no longer talk in a vague way 
of millions of kisses, but the one will send his sweetheart 
as many salutes as the Government would lose pounds in 
revenue were the duty taken off Havanna cigars ; while she, on 
her part, launching into statistics, will return him the same 
number as there are reprieved murderers now confined in the 
prisons of the United Kingdom. Thus ihey will encourage 
a common spirit of inquiry, and blend in a most natural 
manner affection and instruction. The reformation, too. will 
extend to lovers' presents. An elegantly bound copy of 
Tennyson's a Princess : a Medley.'' will give place to a 
voluminous Blue Book, also a Medley; and Parliamentary 
Companions, and Hansard's Debates, will be gifts far more 
highly valued than the costly but useless trinkets so much 
the fashion in the present day. 

I confess that I am fairly dazzled with the delightful pro- 
spect disclosed by Mr. Mill's scheme. Who but a philosopher 
would ever have conceived the grand idea of surround- 
ing with sentimental [I use the word in its best sense;, with 
sentimental associations a subject at first sight so distasteful 
to the female mind as politics ! Poor papa has become so 
unreasonably enraged upon this point that it is useless to 
argue with him. He will have it that dear Mr. Mill, — yes, I 
will say 'dear' Mr. Mill; what does it matter with a philoso- 
pher, and a middle-aged one too ? — having achieved a repu- 
tation before he entered Parliament, thinks it necessary to 
attract attention and make himself remarkable in some way. 



88 PHILOSOPHERS 

in order to sustain the prestige on the strength of which 
mainly he was elected, and thus keep himself from sinking 
into a mere nonentity; and as most of the proposals that 
have from time to time been put forward upon the question 
of reform have become the hobbies or private property, so to 
speak, of certain members of the House, nothing has been 
left for him but woman suffrage, which every one else is 
afraid to take up for fear of being laughed at, but which he 
can advocate without dread of ridicule, from which his calling 
of philosopher and his reputation for superabundant wisdom 
effectually shield him. Of course neither my sisters nor my- 
self take this view of Mr. Mill's conduct ; we fully believe that 
wishing to restore to the world of politics some of that peace- 
fulness and purity which prevailed, as poets tell us, in primi- 
tive times, he, more farseeing than his contemporaries, per- 
ceives that such a result can only be brought about through 
the influence of woman. He, dear man, knows better than 
any of our so-called statesmen and lawgivers, how compre- 
hensive is woman's capacity for good in the world, and how 
simple-minded and guileless she is. Disgusted with the 
petty squabbles, the paltry jealousies, the corruption, the 
deceit, and the bribery which cloud the political horizon, 
he is determined to disperse them all by introducing the 
feminine element, that beautiful, never-to-be-bribed, incor- 
ruptible unchangeable part of creation, whose enforced abne- 
gation of political rights has been the cause of all the evils 
that mankind has ever beheld. 

Now I see the good of philosophers. They are nice 
amiable gentlemen, who go about the world, not looking for 
stones, as I had supposed, but looking for grievances, and 



AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY 89 

when they cannot discover any, kindly inventing some, and 
persuading people that they are oppressed, ground down, 
and degraded, and all sorts of dreadful things, but that if 
they will only take a nostrum which they (these good-hearted 
philosophers) have been all their lives compounding, as a 
panacea for every evil with which mankind has been afflicted, 
they will be perfectly happy, that is to say, until their good 
friends the philosophers have had time to invent another 
fresh grievance, and persuade them they are perfectly 
miserable, when the same process will be repeated, and 
similar doses of flattery, intimidation, and exaggeration 
swallowed, with a. similar valuable result. 



RITUALISM 

" (~* URATE. — Wanted in a small parish where the duty 
^■^ is light. Good voice and principles indispensable. 
Stipend moderate. Apply by letter, prepaid, to the Rev. A. B. ? 
the Rectory, Mudbury." 

There ! This is actually the advertisement papa would 
have inserted in the Ecclesiastical Gazette, if it hadn't been for 
mamma, who said (and we all thought the same — I mean 
myself and my sisters) that it would scarcely have been fit 
even for the pages of the Record, where people advertise for 
Christian young men as curates, as if they expected Maho- 
medans or Mormons to offer themselves. " Good voice and 
principles " indeed ! I can't imagine what papa could have 
been dreaming of when he wrote it, for he must have known 
how dreadfully "low" any allusion to a clergyman's voice 
invariably sounds ; and as for principles, I am sure it was 
superfluous to mention them, as one always expects those 
things as a matter of course. Well, poor papa was very much 
put out at our raising such objections ; but mamma insisted 
upon his not sending it, saying she should be quite ashamed 
if people thought us at all Low church, as they would be sure 
to do if they read such an advertisement as that. Poor dear 



RITUALISM 91 

papa answered that at all events he was not High church, 
and he did not wish to have a High-church curate : but we all 
said, Nonsense ! that we were certain he was in reality High, 
although he might not think he was, and that we were sure he 
would not wish to be considered vulgar, or out of the fashion : 
so at last we prevailed (as I knew we should from the begin- 
ning) and agreed that he was moderately High church, and 
of course required a curate of the same, or allowing for the 
difference of age, of more advanced opinions. 

I forgot to tell you that the reason why we required a curate 
was that Mr. Minikin was leaving. He was always a poor 
creature, miserably off, and, what is worse, married, and his 
wife not — you know — not a desirable person to be acquainted 
with — in fact not quite presentable — I might almost say little 
better than a servant in manners, only I don't like to be hard 
upon the poor thing, now she is gone too ; and at last they 
seemed hardly able to support their family, several (I forget 
how many), — and the children were, some of them, scarcely 
half dressed, so of course we could not think of keeping a 
person of that kind. 

Well, when the advertisement was given up, papa recol- 
lected that he had a friend at Cambridge who would be very 
likely to know of a young man to suit him ; so he wrote to 
him, and, in reply, Mr. Plane Sphere recommended the Rev. 
Gilbert Alban, a young clergyman just ordained. As fellow 
and tutor of his college, Mr. Sphere said that the duties of 
his office hindered him from becoming acquainted, except in 
a very limited degree, with the students individually ; still he 
could conscientiously say that, having seen nothing to the 
contrary, Mr. Alban's conduct during his college course had 



92 RITUALISM 

been most exemplary. Of his religious opinions he (Mr. 
Sphere) was naturally not in a position to judge, but as Mr. 
Alb an had been a regular attendant at morning chapel, even 
in the coldest weather, he presumed they were orthodox. He 
might however add that he was a member of the E.C.U. This 
was the purport of the letter, which papa considered rather 
vague, and said he should have liked to have had a more 
definite report of the young man. However, mamma said that 
a fellow and tutor of a college must know best, and that it 
would be acting very rudely to make further inquiries. So it 
was determined that he should come. We puzzled ourselves 
very much in endeavouring to find out what the letters E.C.U. 
could stand for. I said that it was no doubt the name of 
some learned society, and that Mr. Alban as a member of it 
would place its initials after his name, just as we see people 
write F.R.S., F.G.S., F.S.A., and so on ; and mamma, Katey, 
and Helen thought so too. However we were quite mistaken, 
as we afterwards discovered, for instead of being a learned 
society, it was just the reverse. But to resume my subject. 
Mr. Alban came in due time, such a nice young man, you 
can't think ; a little peculiar in appearance perhaps, because 
he had shaved off his whiskers with the exception of half-an- 
inch on the cheek bone ; but so correct — no collar or neck- 
tie, merely a spotless belt of what might have been white 
cardboard, from its rigid appearance, round his throat (of 
course fastened on to a hair-shirt), and a coat which, worn by 
a layman, would have seemed unnecessarily long, but on him 
looked severely apostolic. 

Mamma was taken with him at once, and thought him so 
interesting, such a contrast to that horrible Mr. Minikin, with 






RITUALISM 93 

his dreadfully careworn countenance. You can't think what 
fun we had when we first showed him over the church ; for as 
papa was engaged, and mamma had a cold, I and my sisters 
took him to see it. 

Mr. Alban confessed that Mudbury had a fine church, 
judging from its exterior, but when he saw the inside he 
seemed perfectly horrified at what he called the work of the 
Vandals, and made us laugh so with his clever and witty 
remarks ; for instance, he likened the pulpit, reading-desk, 
and clerk's seat to a three-decker (I quite saw the analogy), 
and the pews to sheep-pens (how suggestive ! the pastor look- 
ing down upon his flock). Some of his expressions, too, were 
so forcible and original, such as churchwarden's gothic, church- 
warden's decoration (whitewash, you know), that they carried 
conviction with them at once without any need of argument, 
with which, I am glad to say, he dispensed entirely, except on 
one occasion when he bade us observe the inappropriateness 
of placing the royal arms over the chancel-arch, because the 
lion and the unicorn were " fighting for the crown" (which 
never struck me before, but of course they are), and fighting 
in a church is such a horrible idea that I agreed with him, it 
ought to be taken down and broken up for fire-wood, together 
with the board on which the list of benefactors to the parish 
is legibly painted — for certainly the church is the last place 
where the good deeds of one's ancestors should be brought 
before one's notice. You must not fancy, however, that Mr. 
Alban's remarks were entirely confined to fault-finding ; on 
the contrary, he suggested some most important improve- 
ments, such as removing the Lord's Prayer and the Creed 
from the east wall (which, as he urged, were quite unnecessary 



94 RITUALISM 

now that prayer-books are so cheap), and replacing them by 
a neat diaper of blue-and-gold. I said I thought that would 
be much prettier, although I didn't quite understand what 
was meant by diaper, which I had never heard of before except 
in connexion with table-cloths and dinner-napkins. The pews, 
pulpit, and reading-desk, the gallery, and the organ (a horrible 
squeaking old thing that cannot be made to sound at all in 
dry w r eather, the wood shrinks so), we agreed with him 
should be done away with as soon as possible. We told Mr. 
Alban we were afraid the churchwardens would not fall in 
with his views, as the fittings of the church, although so dread- 
fully heretical, were yet in very good repair, having mostly 
been put up about thirty years ago : so he devised such a 
clever plan to outwit them, which (as I am sure you would 
never guess it) I will tell you. It was this, that we should 
each of us commit some mischief whenever we could do so 
without being observed, such as pick off the paint, or knock 
away the whitewash, so that in time the things might look 
shabby, and furnish us with an excuse for removing them 
altogether. We approved of the plan immensely, and I took 
the poker out of the fireplace in the vestry, and knocked such 
a lot of whitewash off the wall close by one of the church- 
wardens' pews, and made a great scratch on the benefaction 
board, which nearly erased the munificent donation of Mr. 
Solomon Dibble, late of this parish, who devised the annual 
sum of four-and-twopence to the poor for ever ; while Katey 
and Helen broke into the organ-loft, disarranged a number of 
the pipes, and stuffed up several with paper. Altogether I 
don't think we ever enjoyed ourselves in church so much 
before. 



RITUALISM 95 

However, I will not weary you with a detailed account of 
how we commenced our operations, but would rather exhibit 
some of the results, which, considering the short time that has 
elapsed since we first thought of introducing ritualistic sim- 
plicity, are, I consider, really marvellous. In the first place, 
we have dismissed the clerk, a poor feeble old man, whose 
quavering voice always reminded me of the bleating of a 
sheep ; and Mr. Alban has been at such pains to provide 
him with a comfortable maintenance in the workhouse, and 
yet he is said to be very discontented and miserable — but it 
is reported that he is not likely to live long, and a happy re- 
lease it would be at his time of life. Then the organ has 
been taken down and replaced by a harmonium, which we 
have hired for the present until we can raise enough money 
to buy a first-rate instrument. I play on it — not the old- 
fashioned slow tunes we used to have, but correct plain-song 
hymns, which are much more lively and inspiriting. You 
know those beautiful lines of the poet — was it Pope ? I can't 
say, I have such a bad memory — 

* ' And now the Chapel's silver bell you hear, 
That summons you to all the pride of prayer : 
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven, 
Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heaven." 

Are they not applicable ? Only, instead of the jig, I would 
substitute the fashionable troistemfis waltz. 

Of course we intone — I mean Mr. Alban intones. Poor 
papa tried it, urged by mamma, but was obliged to give it up, 
as he has no ear, and could not keep upon G if it were ever 
so. A great many of the parishioners object to it, (as they 



96 RITUALISM 

do to most of our improvements,) and say they can't under- 
stand what is said half so well as before : but old Betty 
Hardwick (to whom Mr. Alban has generously given such a 
nice warm scarlet cloak) said she thought it beautiful, and 
she is as deaf as a post too ; so I am sure other people need 
not complain. I am quite enthusiastic, and have been making 
decorations which we intend to put up at Christmas, and 
leave for good ; crosses and triangles in circles, which I know 
are symbolical of something, but I forget at this moment 
what — it is immaterial, I will ask Mr. Alban. Then there is 
illumination, which I have long desired to learn, but have 
never had an opportunity until now; and I am getting on 
capitally, and have already illuminated several texts in thir- 
teenth-century letters, (our church is said to have been built 
somewhere about that period,) and although I say it who 
ought not, they look excessively pretty. Papa (who will 
break out now and then) found fault with them on the ground 
of their illegibility ; but as I replied, they were not intended 
to be read, or they would have been printed in hideously 
clear Roman characters ; they were merely pieces of decora- 
tion placed in the church for effect, and to accustom the 
people to the sight of gaudy, I mean gorgeous colouring, for 
which the text is nothing more than the vehicle, to be dis- 
guised as much as possible. But it must not be fancied, I 
added, that the words might altogether be done away with ; 
and a pattern of some kind substituted, for then we should be 
without an answer to objectors, which we always have now ; 
for even Protestants (or Proddies, as Mr. Alban so facetiously 
calls them) and Evangelicals (or Jellies) are afraid to say very 
much when we tell them that such and such a decoration is 



RITUALISM 97 

really a text of Scripture. George, too, who paid us a flying 
visit a short time back, sneered at my work, and said I had 
better illuminate the bishops, priests, and deacons, as they 
seemed to want it most ; but I was so shocked at his 
language that I never said a word. I knew how it would be 
when I heard he had been staying with General D rumble. 
All that set are frightfully 'low.' It is quite shocking to 
think how little will serve to alter a person's opinions. George 
had quite different ideas once, as I will tell you by-and-by. 

No one can imagine how much we are indebted to 
Mr. Alban for spreading correct principles throughout the 
parish, which he has not shrunk from doing, even at the risk 
of sending people over to the Dissenting chapel. Instead of 
the stupid tracts Mr. Minikin used to distribute, such as 6 The 
Dairymaid's Daughter/ 'The Bellows-mender of Bengal, or 
the Conscientious Chessman/ Mr. Alban gives the poor 
people works of a far different character and tendency ; for 
instance, only to mention the names of a few : i Why I love 
my Prayer-book / * Come to Confession/ ' Masses for the 
Million/ by the author of ' The Shirt, the Symbol, and the 
Surplice / ' The Incense Burners, a tale of Persecution/ and 
many others of the same stamp. A few of the parishioners too 
are deeply impressed with his teaching ; and old widow Wil- 
liams invariably brings her prayer-book to church wrapped up 
carefully in a blue cotton handkerchief, ever since Mr. Alban 
told her to value it above every other book. 

But the majority, I regret to say, are entirely opposed to 
our improvements, which they style dangerous innovations. 
The first symptoms of discontent exhibited itself in the ex- 
ceedingly rude behaviour to me of an old man over eighty 

H 



qS ritualism 

years of age, whom up to that time we always regarded as 
quite a respectable character ; indeed, as he once worked for 
papa, we have allowed him for some years sixpence a month 
as a kind of reward for his general good conduct. One day, 
however, he was standing at the gate of his cottage as I 
passed by, looking, I must confess, very clean and neat — 
but one should never judge by appearances — and I stopped, 
as I usually did, to talk to him and ask after his rheumatism. 
I must mention here that I was wearing one of those long 
rosary necklaces made of jet beads, with a cross suspended 
to it : that was not jet, only imitation, but no one could have 
told the difference. Well, I observed that while I was speak- 
ing he kept his eyes fixed upon this ornament, so I thought 
it a good opportunity of improving the occasion, and holding 
it out in my hand, I said, " I am glad to find, William, that 
you are admiring this. Every one ought to wear one : you 
should have one round your neck f and then I added, in a 
persuasive tone, " It would look very nice over your smock 
frock." 

The old man coughed, and then said deliberately, " I baint 
admiring of it, miss : I wears one in my heart continual, so I 
ha'nt got no call to wear a carved himage outside ; but in 
course you may do as you please, miss." 

I was thunder-struck. The idea of his venturing not only 
to differ from the Rector's daughter, but to have an opinion of 
his own upon such a subject! To be sure he spoke very 
quietly, some might say respectfully ; but those quiet people 
are always the worst. As soon as I had recovered from my 
astonishment, I spoke quite severely to him, and said, " Non- 
sense, William, how dare you to talk in that ridiculous way. 



RITUALISM 



99 



You know very well it is a physical impossibility for you to 
have any thing of the kind. I shall certainly tell papa of 
your behaviour." 

" Very well, miss," he answered, " you are free to do so, and 
I am sorry if I have offended you." 

I did not stop to hear any more, as I was out of all patience 
with him. Sorry, indeed ! well he might be ; but I don't be- 
lieve he was a bit. It is always the way with ignorant people, 
they can't bear to be spoken to, although they may know it is for 
their good all the while. When I returned home I told papa, for 
I was determined to do so while the affair was fresh in my 
mind, and urged him as a duty he owed to society to stop the 
old man's allowance ; but papa, who, I must say, has very little 
self-respect in some things, said that he did not think it would 
be worth while to stop it, taking into consideration old Wil- 
liam's age. So the sixpence a month was continued, but I 
have taken good care never to speak to the old man again. 
No girl who knows what is due to herself ought to run the 
risk of being insulted in such a way a second time. How- 
ever, although people began to talk of the occurrence all over 
the parish, I made up my mind to endure persecution ; and 
so sent to Dashford for a very much larger cross, which I 
wore in place of the other, and displayed ostentatiously on 
every possible occasion ; and frequently, when I have noticed 
the farmers (who are our bitterest opponents) and others 
eyeing me askance at church, I have felt quite like a martyr, 
and perfectly willing to be burnt or any thing rather than 
give up my correct principles. 

The rude behaviour of old William was, as I have said; 
the first symptom of discontent that showed itself; but in a 

H 2 



idd RITUALISM 






very short time afterwards dissensions and feuds, fostered 
mainly by the Dissenters, I have no doubt, sprang up 
throughout the parish, most of them being directed against 
us and our " doings," or " goings on." Indeed, papa said 
he quite disliked to speak to people, he met with such cool- 
ness where there had formerly been so much cordiality. The 
most stormy debates took place at the vestry meetings, and 
poor papa was quite powerless to check the violent and 
unguarded language which was too frequently to be heard at 
them. One of the churchwardens behaved in a scandalous 
manner towards dear Mr. Alban, declaring that he stirred up 
strife in the parish, and the sooner he left it the better, with 
ever so much more to the same effect. As may be imagined 
these disagreements could not long remain a secret from the 
world, and in a little while we became quite the talk of the 
neighbourhood, and all sorts of reports were spread abroad 
about us, scarcely one of which had the faintest foundation 
in fact. An account, false in every particular, of " Popish 
proceedings at Mudbury," found its way into the Dashford 
Gazette, our congregation became thinner and thinner, and 
an appeal to the bishop was hinted at, so that matters began 
to look a little serious, but fortunately at a critical juncture 
we received most opportune aid from a very unexpected 
quarter. 

How this happened I will proceed to explain. Mr. Alban 
often used to say at the time when the disturbances com- 
menced in the parish, that he had little fear for the ultimate 
result, for that the temper of the age was such that no violent 
outburst of Protestant wrath would be sanctioned by the 
dghtminded portion of the community. In support of this 



RITUALISM 101 

opinion he would bid us observe how much more ready 
people are to listen to reason, and how much less prone to 
be carried away by their feelings than they were in former 
times. In the sixteenth century, for instance, the reformers 
did not stay to inquire whether the so-called abuses of the 
Romish Church might not be palliated, and perhaps in part 
justified ; they at once declared them to be abuses, and swept 
them away. We, who hold that the Reformation was a 
gigantic mistake, must ever regret the course the reformers 
adopted, but we are compelled to admit that for the further- 
ance of the object they had in view no other mode of pro- 
cedure would have been so fit. Had they stopped to ask 
themselves whether they were acting fairly, like sensible 
men, or rashly, like bigots, they would never have effected 
the desired result. 

In like manner, he would say, some thirty years ago an 
outburst of blind Protestant fury forced a gallant band of 
men openly to embrace Romanism much sooner than was 
advantageous for the success of the movement they had 
originated. We might, however, safely conclude that that 
would be the last exhibition the nation would ever witness of 
reason and common sense succumbing to passion and pre- 
judice. Since that time men's opinions had undergone a 
complete change. A liberal tone pervaded society, and a 
general tendency was every where displayed to effect a com- 
promise at any price, rather than enter upon such bitter con- 
troversies as those which disgraced past generations. All 
men united in condemning as ungenerous and un-English 
an attack upon an adversary's principles or doctrines, if it 
was conducted with the slightest semblance of vehemence or 



102 RITUALISM 

warmth, and even if a man had right on his side he must be 
careful not to press his opponent too hard, lest he gave 
occasion for the latter to cry out for fair play, and to appeal 
to the public not to listen to one-sided arguments, a mode of . 
defence which would to a certainty enlist their sympathies 
on his behalf. 

For all these reasons, therefore, Mr. Alban said he was 
satisfied we should tide over the crisis ; he only hoped our 
detractors would redouble their accusations, and make a suf- 
ficient number of rash and hasty statements to justify us in 
appealing to the common sense of all upright and honest 
Englishmen. The only fear was that our opponents might 
act with moderation, and he, Mr. Alban, hinted to me what 
a good thing it would be for us if some friend could be in- 
duced to write to the Dashford Gazette a virulent denuncia- 
tion of our doings in Mudbury, plentifully besprinkled with 
the usual full-flavoured Protestant twaddle, and trotting out 
for inspection the Holy Inquisition, the horrors of the confes- 
sional, the Jesuits, and other well-known Protestant bugbears, 
in order to give us an opportunity of rebutting the calumnious 
statements in such moderate and well chosen language as 
would contrast favourably with the violent and abusive terms 
employed by our opponents. I was so deeply impressed with 
the force of Mr. Alban's remarks on this head, that I had 
serious thoughts of writing such a letter myself, and sending 
it to the Dashford Gazette, of course under a nom de plume; 
but papa, who has some very old-fashioned notions on the 
subject of principle, happened to hear of my intention, and 
read me such a lecture, telling me I should be acting meanly 
and deceitfully, and ever so much more, so I had to give up 



RITUALISM 103 

the idea altogether, much to my regret. However, about a 
fortnight afterwards, we were delighted to see in the paper 
the veiy letter we had been wishing for, written by a trades- 
man in Dashford, and headed, "Is Popery to ride rampant 
through the land? or, Mudbury again." I never was so 
amused in my life, as when I read it, the charges brought 
against us were so absurd. We were accused of worshipping 
an old stone cross that stood in the churchyard, and burning 
incense before it, of setting up a confessional in the infant 
school, of playing airs out of the opera of Robert le Diable 
as voluntaries, of making surplices for the choir boys out of 
papa's old shirts, of walking in procession through the 
village, carrying lighted candles in our hands in the middle 
of the day, and of many other deeds equally ridiculous, 
and equally false. In addition to these misstatements, 
the tone of the letter was throughout so violent, and the 
language in which it was couched so unguarded, not to say, 
abusive, that we all felt quite a relief when we had read it, 
being assured that nothing could have been so advantageous 
to us as its publication. I thought the time was now come 
when I might act as I judged best for the public good, with- 
out consulting other people, so I abstracted a small piece of 
chalk from the schoolroom, after the schoolmaster had been 
giving a lesson on the black board, and when nobody saw 
me, scrawled "No Popery" on the outside of our garden- 
gate, and on several conspicuous places in the village, in that 
up and down style of writing affected by the lower orders, to 
tnake believe some poor person had done it ; and, as I expected 
would be the case, the next day "No Popery" was written 
up every where, — amongst other places, on the church-door,— 



io 4 RITUALISM 



the idle boys having amused themselves by copying the 
words I had written, so that my scheme succeeded admirably. 
Papa was very much annoyed, and, assisted by Mr. Alban, 
addressed a beautiful letter to the Editor of the Dashford 
Gazette, in which he appealed to all men of common sense 
to look at the matter in a reasonable light, and not to be led 
astray by one-sided statements, originating with a narrow- 
minded clique (it always tells well to insinuate that Protestant 
statements emanate from a clique) ; declared that he wished 
for a full and complete investigation into the abuses, so-called, 
complained of, when he felt certain that all clear-sighted men 
of the world would acquit him of any wish to introduce 
Popish practices into the parish ; and ended by denying 
seriatim the charges brought against us, stating that nothing 
was left of the old cross in the churchyard but the stem, the 
top having been broken off by the Puritans, that the boys' 
surplices were made of the best Irish linen, that it would 
have been impossible to carry lighted candles in the open 
air on the day alleged, as there was a high wind blowing at 
the time, and so on, disposing of the rest of the charges in 
an equally decisive manner. 

This letter produced a very good effect. The storm after 
raging for a short time blew over, the clear-sighted men of 
the world, who always supposed they had their share of 
common sense, felt flattered by papa's appeal to their im- 
partial judgment, and unanimously declared that our expla- 
nations were perfectly satisfactory, that the statements of our 
opponents were entirely unfounded, and that they themselves 
were characterized by a blind and wilful excess of zeal, 
worthy of the worst days of puritanical bigotry, and that the 



;he 



RITUALISM 105 

attempt to excite animosity against poor dear papa, by 
chalking up "No Popery," disgraced the members of a civi- 
lized community, and showed, plainly enough, that the per- 
petrators of the evil would condescend to adopt any device 
however fiendish, in order to blacken the character of an 
individual who was conspicuous for piety, moderation, good 
feeling, and gentlemanly behaviour. 

The success of our tactics on this occasion proved that 
Mr. Alban was right when he said that the reaction in public 
opinion would tide us over the crisis. If ever any thing of 
the kind should occur in future, we intend to adopt a similar 
course again, and in addition to request Mr. Whalley to ask 
the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he 
proposes to make an inquiry into the alleged Popish practices 
at Mudbury. For we think that by so doing we shall make 
our opponents appear so ridiculous in the eyes of all sensible 
men, that should they attempt to offer any opposition to our 
proceedings we could afford to despise it, knowing that at 
any time we could laugh it down. 

You cannot imagine how thankful I feel to dear Mr. Alban 
for having by his wise foresight suggested a way of escape 
from our persecutors. I rely upon him more than ever, 
indeed I do not know how I could exist out of the sphere of 
his influence. 

A talented writer of my own sex 1 has said that, "in 
Catholic countries the wife's influence is only another name 
for that of the priest," and I can well imagine it to be so. 
What an advantage it must be to have, as it were, two con- 

1 Mrs. Mill on the Enfranchisement of Women. 



ic6 RITUALISM 

fessors and advisers, one's husband and one's priest; for 
many things one would not like to tell the former, might be 
confided to the latter, to the great lightening of one's con- 
science, and the hindrance of matrimonial quarrels. In a 
utilitarian point of view, too, confession would have its value, 
for surely one would feel much happier if one were accus- 
tomed to settle one's little bill of sins weekly, instead of keep- 
ing a running account all one's lifetime. In church, thanks 
again to Mr. Alban, I am thoroughly up in my devotional 
exercises, which I go through every Sunday to the edification 
of the surrounding worshippers. It was a long time before 
I could master them all ; so that I think the suggestion 
which George once made as to this very subject might be 
turned to good practical account. I will give you a sketch 
of his scheme, which he really had at one time some notion 
of carrying out. 

The idea occurred to him after he had attended service at 
a High Church temple in London on an Ash- Wednesday, 
where he appears to have been nearly the only gentleman 
present, the congregation consisting almost entirely of ladies. 
I recollect his telling us that the girls (for they were most of 
them young) were thoroughly up in the service ; that they re- 
sponded in the exact time and place appointed by the rubric, 
as if they had been drilled ; that their voices were pitched 
in the same key ; that they genuflected in unison, and were in 
all respects perfect models of Church worshippers : but that at 
one period in the service one of the girls forgot her instruc- 
tions, and said Amen, or rather A-a-a-men half a second too 
soon, and so threw the rest out. This little incident suggested 
to him the idea that a man might make, as he termed it, 



RITUALISM 107 

a good thing of it by instructing young ladies in the various 
branches of Church deportment. The plan he intended to 
adopt would have been this : — He proposed first of all to go 
through a course of Church services, in places where, as he 
rather profanely remarked, " they do the thing in style," pay 
particular attention to all the minutiae, and make himself 
thoroughly master of the performance. He would then have 
taken a large room in a fashionable locality, have had it fitted 
up as a church, in the latest and most correct taste, and ad- 
vertised for lady pupils, to whom he would have given lessons 
in Church deportment. His terms would have been high, but 
would have been regulated in part by the ton of his pupils, 
as ascertained by their place of residence. He would have 
guaranteed in a certain number of lessons to give a perfect 
knowledge of the art in all its branches. He would have 
formed his classes according to the tenets of his pupils, 
that is, according as they were more or less High Church, 
for of course he would only have taken fashionable girls. 
The class in which to place a young lady he would have 
decided by ascertaining what place of worship she at- 
tended, and would have regulated his instructions in like 
manner. His pupils would have been taught how to pose 
themselves in the various rubrical and canonical attitudes 
required at different parts of the service, how to respond in 
unison, and how to pray in a mediaeval posture, which he 
had elaborated, after intense study, from a comparison of the 
practice of the early Church, assisted by an inspection of 
some drawings in the Cotton and Harleian MSS. Instruction 
in the Marriage Service, special attention being given to the 
proper pronunciation of the words " I will," would have been 



108 RITUALISM 

an extra. To add piquancy to his lectures, and to increase 
their attractiveness, eligible young men, with vouchers from 
the mammas of the girls, would have been allowed to attend 
free. George thought that the means which his lectures 
would thus afford of introducing young people to suitable 
partners for life would have made them deservedly popular. 
For a five-guinea fee parties about to be married could have 
rehearsed the Marriage Service in his lecture-room ; and 
when specially desired, George himself would have attended, 
at St. George's, Hanover-square, at the actual celebration, 
would have posed the performers, given the time, and regu- 
lated the pitch and tremulousness of the voices according to 
the dowry of the bride and the age of the bridegroom. Piety 
and fervour, not being absolute requisites, would also have 
been charged as extras, but would have been equally guaran- 
teed after a course of lectures. 

This was his plan ; and considering the intricacy of most 
of the ritualistic evolutions, I think it would be a good thing 
if some one were to take the hint and carry it out. 



CHRISTMAS-TIDE 

M OT plain Christmas, or Christmas time, you will observe, 
■*■ ^ but Christmas-tide ; and, much more i correct' it is, I 
can assure you, to speak thus. We should, as Mr. Alban has 
been at great pains to teach me, always endeavour, in making 
mention of ' seasons ' or festivals, or indeed any thing eccle- 
siastical, to use expressions which we may know upon good 
authority to have been in vogue in pre-dfeformation periods, 
in order that we may gradually accustom ourselves, and the 
friends we may wish to influence, to mediaeval modes or forms 
of speech, and so pave the way for future improvements. 
Want of attention to these apparently trivial details frequently 
annuls the work of years of patient instruction, and I have 
heard of a case where a really first-rate subject for conver- 
sion — a young girl of weak intellect but of most sensitive 
disposition — progressing at a rapid rate in the right direction, 
was driven back into the slough of ultra-protestantism by the 
incautious employment of a a unfamiliar although quite cor- 
rect expression by her spiritual adviser. You see then how 
necessary it is that we should be particular as to our phrase- 
ology : and this reminds me to bid you notice the word 
Deformation, which I have; made use of a few lines above. 



no CHRISTMAS-TIDE 






What do you think it stands for? Why, for Reformation 
to be sure, what is called the Reformation. Mr. Alban very 
justly says, we, in spreading 'correct' principles, are endeavour- 
ing as much as possible to do away with the demoralizing 
effects of that deplorable occurrence, which, far from reforming 
the Church of England, in reality deformed it ; and therefore 
it is our duty, our bounden duty, when we speak of the so- 
called Reformation, to term it the Deformation, whereby our 
neighbours and friends, becoming accustomed to hearing 
that unhappy movement ridiculed, gradually contract a kind 
of contempt for it themselves ; and, what is of far more im- 
portance in our eyes, we adhere to the strict and literal 
truth. 

However, I am wandering from my subject ; but as it is 
only just lately that I have learnt the value of language when 
rendered subservient to its proper ends, you will excuse a 
little parade of my newly-acquired knowledge. Oh yes, to 
be sure, Christmas. Well, it is much the same as usual, you 
know — mince-pies, and plum-puddings, and flannel garments 
for the poor people, and compliments of the season, and so 
forth. I expect to enjoy it in a quiet way ; for although at 
one time, as perhaps you may remember, I was rather low- 
spirited, and talked about going into a convent and leading 
a life of asceticism, since then dear Mr. Alban and I have 
been comparing souls (a most profitable occupation), and he 
assures me it would amount to perfect wickedness if I were 
to give way to gloomy thoughts and melancholy feelings, 
and tells me I ought to strive against them ; and indeed he 
puts things in such a pleasant light, and doesn't object to any 
amusement he sees I am fond of, that we get on capitally. 



CHRISTMAS-TIDE in 

1 always know when Christmas is near by one thing, and 
that is mince-pies. There is an old saying, which I dare say 
you are aware of, that for every mince-pie one eats before 
Christmas, one will have a month's happiness in the new 
year ; so whenever we go to a dinner party, and a gentleman 
next me asks me if I won't take a mince-pie, I say first of all, 
" No, thanks," and that gives him an opportunity of returning 
to the charge, and pressing me again to take one, adding as 
an inducement the month's happiness, which he is certain to 
offer with the air of a person who is starting a perfectly 
original idea ; so of course I laugh, and say " Dear me ! how 
funny — is it really so ?" (as if I had never heard the saying 
before). " No, not a whole one, please, just a little piece to 
taste." This I say, not because I could not eat a whole 
mince-pie, but because I know that he will then with great 
self-satisfaction make the following reply : "Well, Miss Gush- 
ington, if you really will not take a whole one, let me share 
one with you, and then we shall have a fortnight's happiness 
?.piece ;" whereat I laugh (quite naturally), and he laughs, and 
the company in the immediate neighbourhood laugh, as if he 
had said a really witty thing ; for I have always noticed that 
if you want people to laugh, you had better make a bad old 
joke than a good new one, for, in the first place, every one 
knows the point of the former, and in the second people 
laugh out of pure compassion for the perpetrator, because by 
experience they know how painful is the position of one who 
having delivered himself of a Joe Miller is disappointed of 
the expected titter. Consequently, when the mince-pie epi- 
sode occurred, it struck me as a matter of course that we 
must be getting near Christmas, and that we should soon be 



H2 CHRISTMAS-TIDE 

very busy, and in the midst of preparations of all kinds for 
the gaities and duties of the season. 

Now I can fancy exactly the sort of Christmas you expect 
me to describe, what I call Christmas-tale Christmas, and I 
will give you an idea of what I mean by that. 

Christmas-day — a fine frosty morning — ground completely 
covered with snow as crisp as can be — seasonable weather 
this. Fathers of families punctual at church, families and 
all — young ladies, red noses and petticoats — boys, chilblains, 
red knuckles and comforters. The old baronial Hall or fine 
Elizabethan Mansion (always one or the other in Christmas 
stories) transformed into a perfect bower, with clusters of 
holly and evergreens covering deer's antlers, picture-frames 
(surrounding portraits of eminent ancestors), and filling every 
available nook and corner, the whole beautifully lit up by a 
magnificent fire on the hearth (yule-log in a proper state of 
combustion of course), making the holly-berries blush a deeper 
scarlet as they ogle their fair companions on the big mistletoe, 
and sending forth a flood of ruddy light to welcome relations 
rich and poor, especially poor (this is always a great day for 
poor relations), who meet once a year on an equality with 
their more favoured kindred, because it's Christmas. 

In they come, one carriage-load after another. Old gentle- 
men muffled up in wraps, red of cheeks and blue of noses, 
with merry Christmas and a happy New Year — same to you 
and many of them — seasonable weather this — regular old- 
fashioned Christmas — makes one feel quite young again — 
a great deal of make-believe that it's just the kind of weather 
they like, so seasonable they repeat ; nothing loth, however, 
to have a good warm at the fire, for they are shivering and 



CHRIS TMA S- TIDE 1 1 3 

shaking all over, notwithstanding their enjoyment of the cold. 
Christmas fire, indeed — that's seasonable too. Hallo, my 
boy, merry Christmas to you — hearty man this, who thinks it 
looks genial, and jolly, and English, and ever so much more, 
to knock the breath out of your body by a sounding slap on 
the back, and make your knuckles crack again as he shakes 
hands with you, and at this season crushes every bone by the 
extra vehemence he imparts to his gripe, because it's Christ- 
mas. No fire for the hearty man — he doesn't mind the cold, 
not he — likes it, bless you. This is the way to get warm if 
you are cold, and off he sets stamping up and down the hall, 
and slapping his chest with his arms like a hackney-coachman, 
because he thinks it looks jolly. Just a little drop of brandy 
after your drive, eh ? Well, says one old gentleman, what do 
you say? seasonable I think — only up to the pretty, Mary 
— and how is your sweetheart, eh, Mary? — merry Christmas 
to you both ; and the old boys chuckle as they toss off their 
glasses, and wink feebly at the good-looking servant-maid, 
who has decked herself out in finery and smart cap-ribbons, 
regardless of ' missus,' for isn't it Christmas ? 

All arrived? No, there's uncle Richard, and aunt, and 
the little ones. Thomas, just look out, perhaps you may 
hear them coming — { Yes, Sir, carnage acomin' along the i' 
road, Sir ;' and sure enough the sound of a horse's trot is 
distinctly heard through the clear frosty air, and presently 
up drives uncle Richard, crunching the frozen snow with the 
wheels of his trap as he draws up with a c wo-ho, lass ' at the 
door. In they come, uncle Richard's whiskers stiff with 
icicles, aunt a mere animated bundle of shawls ; the boys and 
girls tumble out and take off wraps and comforters before the 

I 



ii 4 CHRISTMAS-TIDE 

blazing fire. Chorus, ad lib., Merry Christmas and a happy 
New Year. Same to you, and many of them. Now we really 
are all here ? Yes. — Dinner on the table, Sir. Just in time, 
egad — off we go — hope you've a good' appetite. Splendid 
piece of beef — really splendid — 'pon my word splendid — as 
for the turkey, Uncle William knows where that came 
from — thirty pounds weight if it's an ounce. Present from 
my brother-in-law (host sotto voce to right-hand neighbour) 
every year, and I don't think he ever sent us a finer bird. 
Indeed, but I can't take my eyes off that beef— perfect 
picture — your own feeding ? Oh yes, bred and fed on the 
estate — magnificent beast he was too, over twenty score 
a quarter. You don't say so. What do you give your 
fat stock now ? Oh, roots, mangolds and swedes, and hay. 
Any cake ? Oh yes, cake and a little meal, that's all. Dear 
me, pray don't begin upon that dreadful farming, it's quite a 
mania with my husband, he loses lots of money by it. — My 
dear, my dear — Oh, nonsense, I know you do. Ahem, sore 
subject evidently. My good lady doesn't understand these 
matters, ahem. Wiggins ; a glass of wine with you ? With 
pleasure — out of date I know — keep up old customs— so do 
I — to be sure, especially at this season of the year. Thomas, 
sherry, Mr. Wiggins, and Thomas, take the champagne 
round to the ladies, no — the champagne, do you hear? — that's 
it. Grandfather, here's your very good health, and I hope 
you may dine with us for many a Christmas Day to come. 
Thankye, John, thankye. Wears well, doesn't he ? Sur- 
prising. Let me see, seventy-eight I should say, my wife 
knows though — eighty-two ! no, no, not so much — when they 
get to that time of life they always put on a year or two — no, 



CHRISTMAS-1IDE 115 

seventy-eight is as old as lie is, if he's that— (young lady) 
Yes — nice old man, Fm so fond of old people. 

Oh, here comes the pudding, all ablaze with blue-fire 
(sensation among the juvenile members of the party, ex- 
hibited chiefly in a desire to get a piece with some flame on 
it). Capital — done to a turn — never ate a better, and never 
wish to — something like a Christmas dinner this, eh ? Ah ! 
I believe you — well, just a thimbleful to take off the richness. 
My poor father's plan, a spoonful of brandy after plum- 
pudding, always took it himself. Indeed, well HI try it — 
assists digestion does it ? Ah, I shouldn't wonder. " For 
what we have received, &c." Host rises — a few words — 
great pleasure I'm sure — couldn't be more so — see so many 
of our friends at our — er — er — annual meeting, I mean as- 
semblage at our — er — annual — er — er — gathering — old cus- 
toms should be kept up, and when I see so many of our 
friends — er — er — so many of our friends — er — er (desperately) 
— and relatives round our table, I mean board, round our 
board, our festive board, I feel — er — er — I feel, I say, 
I cannot but feel (coughs protractedly) — (hear, hear) — 
hearty man raps the table vigorously with a pair of nut- 
crackers — (hear, hear) — when I say I meet so many I can- 
not say, I mean, I say, I feel — (hear, hear) — I feel, I say, 
grateful and thankful that — er— er — we have been spared to 
meet again on a similar occasion — (hear, hear) — hearty man 
works away with the nutcrackers — hostess thinks how he 
must be spoiling the mahogany — Christmas is a season of 
the year when as I have said we should all — er — er — (can't 
think of any thing but " meet together," and is aware that he 
has already made use of that expression several times) when 

I 2 



n6 CHRISTMAS-TIDE 

we should all— er — er — unite, yes, unite, when we should all 
unite in fostering, in promoting — er — harmony — er — and kina 
feeling — and kind feeling — er — (hear, hear) — one towards the 
other — (hear, hear) — and, therefore, when I see around me — 
when I behold so many kind friends and neighbours, I fee! 
that, that, I feel how much, that is, I feel that (becomes 
hopelessly lost, resolves to conclude as quickly as he can), I 
mean that, I am very much obliged to you all for coming 
here to-day, that we both are, and that we join in the good 
wishes of the season, and wish you all a merry Christmas 
and a happy New Year, when it comes — (hear, hear, heai, 
hear). Sits down. Instant relief of company, who, with the 
exception of the hearty man, have been inspecting the pattern 
of their dessert plates with great appearance of interest 
during the speech of host. Buzz of conversation — flow of 
small talk. Ingenious young gentlemen transform that use- 
ful fruit, the orange, into a variety of elegant shapes for the 
especial delectation of the fair sex. Oh — scream from young 
lady — first cracker — what's the motto ? 

"If Cupid did but tell me true, 
He'd say I should make love to you." 

Ha, ha, ha ! — not bad. Crack, crack, crack — file-firing all 
round the table, boys and girls, and grown-up people pulling 
crackers like fun. Oh, here come the little ones (influx of 
children for dessert). Oh you darling — will you give me 
a kiss? — Example contagious — all the young ladies kissing 
all the little children — young men delirious at the sight — 
Now what will you take, my dear? — may she, mamma: 
Well, just a sip, to drink gran'ma and granpa's good hcaltii 



CHRISTMAS-TIDE 117 

—this is a Christmas, isn't it grandpapa ?— grandmamma 
says it reminds her of old times— grandpapa heaves a sigh 
for the past — affects to be gay — touches his hair — snow on 
the roof— ha, ha, ha !— what spirits the old gentleman has— 
grandmamma wipes her spectacles and sniffs — grandpapa 
relapses and blows his nose — risk that conversation will take 
a melancholy turn — hearty man to the rescue — riddle, just 
made it myself (nobody believes that). " What flowers bloom 
most freely in the winter?" — Give it up? " Xoses, which 
are generally to be found then in full blow? Ha, ha, ha ! 
(laughs himself) not bad, eh ? — mild youth to young lady, 
" grogblossom, I suppose," — she smiles faintly, suspecting 
a joke, but not having the remotest notion of what it is — 
collapse of mild youth, who being conceited, as most mild 
youths are, becomes disconcerted, wishes he had said 
nothing, thinks every one is thinking how stupid he is — no 
one troubles his head about him. 

Telegraphic communication between hostess and matrons 
in immediate neighbourhood, — ladies rise — rustle bustle — not 
going to leave us — what a pity we don't introduce continental 
customs — Oh, yes, perfectly miserable until you send for us. 
No, go into the drawing-room with the ladies, there's a 
good lad, we shall be busy here, — only in the way, you know. 
There — all the gentlemen draw a long breath — Host pokes 
the fire cheerfully — turn round — push the table back, mind 
the lamp — form a half circle — that's more comfortable. Don't 
drink that stuff, I'll give you some of my forty-sevens. — It is of 
no use putting good wine before ladies, — like throwing pearls 
you know, — exactly — (distinguished port wine connoisseur) 
I always give my folks port at twenty-eight shillings a dozen. 



u8 CHRISTMAS-TIDE 

— No ! — Do indeed, it's the same I buy for the poor people ; 
tfiey don't know that, but its the very same. What a capital 
plan, ha, ha, ha — do they like it ? Think it first rate ; it's 
fruity and sweet you know, with plenty of body, and that's all 
they care for. Capital, don't take much of it yourself, I'll 
swear. Never touch a drop — no, I'm drinking fifty-ones now, 
and very good wine it is for every-day work, but forty-sevens 
is what I call my wine. Well, try this, — how do you like it ? 
Oh, a good wine, a very good wine, but it wants drinking, it's 
going off. Think so ? Not a doubt of it ; what a difference 
there is in forty-sevens ? There is. Cellar has a good deal 
to do with that, I fancy. Well, of course it has some, but in 
my opinion the wine has been left too long in the wood in 
many cases. You are right, that's it ; nothing spoils wine so 
much — stands with you I think ; fresh glasses, and try this 
bottle of thirty-fours — what a wine thirty- fours is ! — look at 
that now, how it keeps its colour — not much of that wine in 
the country, all in private hands. Oh yes, no use to wine 
merchants, wouldn't bear moving. Oh dear no, never re- 
cover itself. Well, now you mention it, I believe I have one 
bottle left of that very old v/ine (there is always one bottle 
left however old the wine may be), I'll see if I can find one 
bottle. — (Exit Sir John, or the Squire, as the case may be, no 
butler ever allowed to bring up that wine — triumphant return, 
bottle in hand) — the very last I do believe — look at that, sir, 
a mass of cobwebs — there's a cork for you (cork handed 
round for inspection ; every one assumes a knowing look as 
it passes through his hands) — Ah! that is a cork, and no mis- 
take — no possibility of contradicting that assertion : warm the 
decanter Thomas, and steady, mind, steady. Now, sir (to 



CHRIS TM A S- TIDE 1 1 9 

distinguished connoisseur). Distinguished connoisseur, with 
an air of preternatural solemnity, holds the glass up to 
the light, looks through it with his left eye — Wonderful! — 
looks through it with his right eye — Astonishing! — squints 
through it with both eyes — Extraordinary! — snuffs up the 
savour — What a bouquet ! — takes a mouthful, looks first as if 
he were about to whistle, secondly, as if he were about to play 
on the flute, rolls the precious juice over his tongue — swallows 
it with a gulp— breathless silence. Verdict, MAGNIFICENT ! 
fifty years in bottle too. Every one concurs, magnificent ; no 
one would think of differing from distinguished connoisseur, so 
all smack their lips, making believe to like it, thinking it little 
better than vinegar the while — real tawny port this (in Christ- 
mas tales, no worm ever gnaweth at the cork, no critic ever 
suggests that the wine is past its prime, should have been 
drunk ten years ago, &c. Sec,). i Cousin John, this is re- 
markably fine wine ;' thus poor relation, who thinks it a 
good opportunity of declaring to the company the degree of 
kinship in which he stands to the host, and of intimating that 
he has been in better circumstances, and that his daily liquor 
was not always beer of the smallest. — ' Glad you like it, my 
good fellow/ (a thought patronizingly, perhaps, but that may 
be manner,) ' it is fine wine, I agree with you.' — Poor relation 
in high feather — relates an anecdote, to which no one pays the 
smallest attention, of his father and the late Duke of York. 
How my poor father, sir, used to dine frequently with the 
duke — on very intimate terms indeed ; and how the duke 
gave such bad wine, my father, a first-rate judge of wine, 
couldn't drink it, positively couldn't drink it, sir ; and how 
the duke said to him one day, before several princes of the 



120 CHRISTMAS-TIDE 

blood and many of the highest nobility, 6 Smithers, I don't 
know how it is, but I can't give my friends such wine as you 
do;' and he couldn't, it's a fact, — capital cellar my poor 
father kept, capital ! 

(A quiet peep at the ladies.) Put off! — You don't say so 
— well that's what I have heard certainly. — Oh, do tell us all 
about it. — I should not like to be positive on the point, you 
know. — Oh, sure to be true. — I heard it from very good 
authority, but I am not acquainted with all the particulars. — 
Never mind — do just as well — let us know all about it. — 
Well, it is reported that it was her parents' doing, but I 
should say it was much more likely to be his mother. — So 
should I — not a doubt of it. — At all events the marriage 
has been indefinitely postponed, and we all know what that 
means. — Oh, of course. — They say she feels it dreadfully. — 
Poor thing. — Though there's no doubt that with his prospects 
he could do very much better. — (Chorus of eligible girls) 
Oh, much better. — Poor thing. — It was fixed, you know, 
for next Wednesday, and I hear he had made her some 
beautiful presents, and had given the bridesmaids most 
elegant rings, and brooches, emeralds, and brilliants, and 
they will all have to be returned. — What a pity. — For my 
own part I must say I was surprised when I heard of the 
match. — So was I immensely. — And I always said, do you 
know, that something of the sort would be certain to happen. 
I felt convinced from the very first it would come to nothing. 
— Although we must all admit that she is a dear creature, 
there is no doubt that he was throwing himself away. 
— Oh completely. — Poor thing. — Not that she was a giri 
I could ever get on with. — No, nor I— there was always 



CHRISTMAS-TIDE 121 

a something. — Yes, there was — there was a kind of reserve 
about her I never could understand. — Yes, poor dear, she 
never appeared to take the slightest interest in what girls 
generally care about. — No, she never came out well in 
society, — She would make a sweet clergyman's wife, now. — 
Yes, wouldn't she ? just the very thing for her — to go among 
the poor people — exactly fitted for that. — Never have done 
for him, no style about her, — not an atom ; what ever could 
have been the attraction I can't possibly imagine. Oh, my dear, 
there's no accounting for men's taste. (Hostess) Sorry to 
interrupt you, but the young people are thinking of getting up 
a little dance, so the servants will be obliged to move the 
things away. Oh won't that be nice. Delightful, dear. 

(The dining-room again). Do you know my fifty-eights 
are ripening fast — nonsense, can't be fit yet — no not fit, but 
coming on I assure you — well, I shouldn't have thought it — I 
like a glass or perhaps two about eleven o'clock in the day 
with a biscuit — oh yes, I dare say in that way, one could drink 
fifty-eight wine now. Talking of new port, they tell me sixty- 
threes is the coming wine. Yes, you are right there — I had in 
a pipe the other day. Poor relation wishes to know now 
whether that's the kind of wine you would recommend a man 
to lay in a stock of. By all means, sir — couldn't do better 
— and see it bottled yourself. Poor relation says he cer- 
tainly will see it bottled himself. Then, sir, take my word 
for it, you'll never repent it. Coffee ! Bless me how quickly 
the time passes when one is talking upon interesting subjects 
— have a glass of sherry to finish up with. Well, just half a 
glass. Tea ready in the drawing-room ? What do you say, 
shall we join the ladies ? Well, I suppose we must. Young 



122 CHRISTMAS-TIDE 

men take advantage of the opportunity to rise at once. They 
have been bored by the conversation. Wine all very well in 
its way, you know, but one may have too much of a good 
thing — one may. They have tried, it is true, to start a few 
topics on their own account — they have severally declared 
half a dozen times apiece their wish that this confounded 
frost would go, and that we might have a little open weather 
— they have related wonderful feats performed by wonderfully 
clever animals, up to any weight, and equal to going over 
any thing, if you would only give them their head, but the 
vinous verbosity of their elders has thrown a damp over their 
spirits, so that it is with a feeling of relief they hail the advent 
of coffee. 

The drawing-room — chairs and tables cleared away — 
(elderly gentlemen with dismay) What, are they going to 
dance ? (Young gentlemen with delight) A dance, by Jove. 
(Host aside) Two card-tables in the library — old gentlemen 
brighten up — (Hostess to good dancer) Now I depend upon 
you. Where's the music, who'll play ? (Beautiful being who 
knows she will not be permitted to do so, but thinks it will 
look amiable and self-sacrificing to offer) Oh, I will. No 
indeed you shall not. Let me. Young ladies squabble ele- 
gantly, as to who shall play — matron intervenes and seats 
herself on the music-stool, to their great relief. Quadrille — 
wish I had thought of bringing white gloves. Oh never mind 
— family party, you know. Yes, the decorations are really 
beautiful — most artistic — May I have the pleasure — What is 
it, a Waltz ? Oh, I don't like a Polka at all — they say it's 
coming into fashion again — really — my fan if you please — on 
the mantelpiece, thank you — Galop— dear me, how warm the 



CHRISTMAS-TIDE 125 

room is becoming ! Yes, isn't it ? What do you say, shall we 
go and see how the card-players are getting on ? By all 
means. Double, treble, and the rub, seven points. What are 
we playing ? oh, shilling points, half-a-crown on the rubber, 
just something to give an interest to the game — exactly. 
Hearts again — silence of the tomb — odd trick and two by 
honours. Why the doose did you play the ace third hand 
instead of the queen ? Completely cut up — you should have 
led trumps. Didn't you know the four was the best card ? 
How do we stand ? Not very interesting to people who look 
on, is it ? Waltz — Lancers — Galop — Quadrille — Oh you wicked 
creature — standing under the mistletoe, was I ? Well, I'm 
sure — it will be such fun, won't it ? Oh do, there's a darling 
— don't be ridiculous — but my love — well there, then— look at 
that horrid boy staring at us. My dear, it is getting very 
late — come girls — I thought you were at cards, papa — finished 
long ago, where's Sir John, we must be off directly. Yes, my 
carriage if you please — going! no, no, no, nonsense— we 
havn't had Sir Roger yet — now, gran'ma, you really must — 
oh my eye, ain't these custards jolly — tum-ti-tum-ti-tiddidy — 
a good swing round in the middle — a fine old English gentle- 
man, isn't he ? A drop of something warm to keep the cold 
out before you go — Henry, my boy, I leave that to you, 
University men know what's good — now, Mary, where are 
those eggs ? — 'a done, Master Henry ; I'll tell, that I will, 'a 
done I say — there, you must drink it while it's hot — oh ! this 
is egg-flip is it ? (young ladies taste, burn their mouths, say 
it is very nice, and think it very nasty) — yes, I thought you 
would like it — have some more — no, thanks, I'll take a little 
mulled wine — well, wrap yourselves up warm whatever you 



I2 4 CHRIS TM A S- TIDE 

do — beautiful moonlight night, freezing hard though — ta, ta. 
Lock the door, Thomas, and put out the lights in the dining- 
room — thank goodness that's over — went off very well, didn't 
it ? oh capitally — good night. I'm so sleepy. 

There, that's what I call Christmas-tale Christmas, with 
the addition in most cases of truant sons returning repentant, 
just in time for a prime cut off the sirloin, and crusty old 
gentlemen who have been supposed to be curmudgeons all 
their lives turning out perfect founts of benevolence, bent 
upon reconciling every body to every body else, and given to 
placing thousand-pound notes under dessert plates. 

Now I can't call this sort of Christmas true to nature, 
simply because I have never experienced any thing of the 
kind except in books. Even the weather generally is most 
disappointing. I can't remember a really old-fashioned 
Christmas with plenty of frost and snow, and it is impossible 
to be enthusiastic about the season on a mild April day, with 
a drizzling rain, and primroses to be found in every hedge ; 
and as for social gatherings, they are all very well to read 
about, but impracticable in the country, with bad roads and 
people living ten or a dozen miles off, not to mention that we 
have always lots to do at home with poor people at this 
season of the year. No, our Christmas is of a most prosaic 
kind. Papa, for instance, is at this period immersed in coals, 
as he has the management of the fund for supplying the poor 
with that much-coveted article at a cheap rate ; and mamma, 
assisted by us, superintends the transactions of the clothing- 
club, allotting blankets to one person, sheets to another, 
boots and shoes to a third, flannel petticoats to a fourth, and 
so on. We endeavour to satisfy every body, but have never 



CHRISTMAS-TIDE 125 

been able to succeed yet, for although we allow each 
depositor to state what article she would wish to have before 
we make our purchases, we invariably find, when all has 
been finally arranged, that there are a few discontented 
individuals who desire to have something different, and think 
their neighbours have been better served than they, and go 
away grumbling because we cannot transform a pair of 
strong boots into a pair of sheets, or vice versa. 

Mamma, besides managing the clothing-club, has a great 
deal to do in superintending such culinary operations as the 
making of plum-puddings and mince-meat, for we have a 
regular set of poor people who have their dinner at the 
rectory on Christmas-day, so that we have to make a large 
quantity of those eatables. We do not interfere much (I 
mean myself and sisters), but on Christmas-eve, when what 
we call our pudding, that is the one we are to have for dinner 
ourselves, is mixed ready to be put in the pot, we each of us 
throw a little something into it, a few plums or a little spice, 
and give it a good stir round, just to say that we have all had 
a hand in making it. 

Besides the poor people who come to dinner, we have a 
continued succession from morning till night of carol-singers, 
for whom we provide a stock of fourpenny-pieces, a large 
cake, and two or three bottles of what our grocer calls " fine 
old ginger wine." We prefer giving the children ginger wine 
to sherry or port, because a little goes a great way, for none 
of them can take much without a violent fit of coughing, 
while the ginger renders it very warming and agreeable on a 
cold day, and gives an appearance of strength and body to a 
really innoxious beverage. 



126 CHRISTMAS-TIDE 

So you see our Christmas is spent in a very quiet and 
useful manner. Sometimes we have a few friends on New- 
Year's day, and if there are young people among them we 
get up a dance, or play at round games, proverbs, &c. Such 
being the case, I am almost sorry I began an essay on the 
present subject, for I find I have so much less to say about 
it than I expected, and what is more, I shall have to conclude 
rather abruptly, as Mr. Alban has been fidgetting in the 
drawing-room ever so long waiting for me. I don't know 
whether he wants me to compare souls, or to go up with him 
to the church and help in the decorations ; however, which- 
ever it should be, I must make haste and get ready for hica, 
and finish by wishing my readers a Merry Christmas and a 
Happy New Year. 



DANCING 

T MENTIONED in " Christmas-tide " that I expected 
■*■ to enjoy myself in a quiet way this winter, and so I have, 
for we have been to a great many parties of one sort or the 
other, chiefly dances however, and to one really very grand 
ball, private, but still there were more than eighty persons 
present I should think, and in this part of the world we con- 
sider that a large number. 

Katey and I went (of course with mamma), and poor Helen 
was obliged to stay at home. I pitied her immensely, but 
then you know, as dear mamma said, it would never do for 
all three of us to go out together, it would look so pointed. 
So you see it couldn't be helped ; and after all, I dare say she 
enjoyed herself very nearly as much, playing back-gammon 
with papa, who promised to keep awake, if he possibly could, 
on purpose. 

Now I dare say you are all anxiety to know how we were 
dressed. Well, I was in an agony for nearly a week before, 
thinking how I should go, whether I should wear a most 
beautiful fancy dress I had for a ball in the summer, or an 
ordinary low white spotted grenadine, trimmed with ruches 
and rosettes, edged with green, and wreath to match. At last 



128 DANCING 

I decided in favour of the former ; for although it was not to 
be a fancy ball, I thought there could be no harm in wearing 
what after all was not by any means singular, and was de- 
cidedly striking, as I am sure you will say when I give you 
a description of it. Imagine then a maid of honour temp. 
Elizabeth (and every body said I looked exactly like one), 
attired in the most lovely and the richest blue satin tunic 
possible — light Mice (you ought to feel very much compli- 
mented) — sloping from the waist into a gorgeous train, and 
displaying a most elegant white satin skirt ! The body semi- 
low, (and this was the annoying part of it, but in those days 
I suppose they were not sufficiently civilized to wear quite 
low dresses,) square neck, puffed sleeves, close at the wrist, 
the whole trimmed with the most delicate edging of swans- 
down you ever saw, and to crown all, a most piquant head- 
dress of pearls, a la Marie Stuart. I can assure you the 
costume was universally admired ; and although it is not the 
thing for gentlemen to make remarks to ladies about their 
dresses, yet in this instance I think it was quite allowable for 
them to tell me, as many did, that mine was most becoming. 
The long train was rather inconvenient, certainly, and I 
heard some ill-natured old maids say, they supposed it was 
set to catch a spark, or that it was ready laid for a match, 
with other absurd remarks, of which I saw neither the wit 
nor the point. I only know they would have been very glad 
to have been in my shoes (white satin), for all their .satirical 
observations. I managed it (the train) pretty well till we 
came to the Lancers, which we danced in two sets of sixteen, 
of course in the greatest confusion in the last figure ; for al- 
thougn it seems to me to be the simplest thing in the world, 



DANCING 129 

there are always one or two stupid people who appear unable 
to tell the difference between an outside ring and an inside 
ring. But that is not what I was going to say. You know 
the third figure, where all the gentlemen join hands and 
dance round the ladies, and vice versa; a figure by-the-by, 
which always puts me in mind of an old picture in the Penny 
Magazine, representing the war dance of the Feejee Islanders : 
well, you can fancy my horror at knowing that every one of 
the eight gentlemen passed backwards and forwards no less 
than eight times apiece over my train, which I was powerless 
to remove. I was certain what it would be, and when the 
dance was over, sure enough there it was, gone at the gathers. 
Fortunately a little pinning-up soon set me right again, and 
as I was more careful for the rest of the evening, no further 
mishap occurred. 

Katey and I have often compared notes as to the different 
styles of dancing which gentlemen adopt; and as on the 
evening in question we both danced every dance, we had a 
good opportunity of making observations on that point, and 
we agreed that one's partners might as a rule be placed in 
three classes, under the following heads, namely, the c go- 
ahead/ the t teetotum/ and the ' wobbler/ The go-ahead is 
all for pace, and rushes round the room in a series of bound- 
ing steps too often utterly regardless of other couples. Some- 
times the go-ahead partner has a good ear, and knows how 
to make his way without coming into collision with any one, 
even in a crowded room. When this is the case he is by no 
means an unpleasant dancer, as he whirls you along without 
any effort on your part, and while he tires himself, leaves you 
as fresh at the conclusion as you were at the commence- 

K 



130 DANCING 

ment. When however he does make a false step, or a mis- 
calculation as to distance, one is pretty certain, as you say in 
your University slang, to go a c howler/ or come to utter grief. 
But no misadventure of this kind ever seems to abash the 
go-ahead partner. No sooner have you recovered from the 
shock of a terrific collision than he- is for starting off again in 
the same reckless manner, and your only consolation consists 
in hoping that at the pace he is going he is more likely to 
knock other people down than to be knocked down himself. 

The teetotum is a complete opposite to the last named, 
for I am convinced that a first-rate dancer of this class could 
execute the fastest galop on a space no larger than that 
occupied by an ordinary drawing-room table. The teetotum 
is always tall and generally dances very well, and his grand 
principles are to rotate upon his own axis as quickly as 
possible, and to keep out of other people's way. To this end 
he never scampers along round the room with the general 
ruck of dancers ; and if he does join them, it is only for a 
moment or two, or to thread dexterously between the couples. 
As a rule he prefers the centre of the room, where he and a 
few others of the same class perform a variety of manoeuvres, 
without ever coming into contact with one another. The 
only objection I have to a teetotum partner is, that he 
frequently omits the galopade across the room at the be- 
ginning of a dance. Now I miss this, for with a partner who 
trots you out well one often makes a fine show at such 
a time ; besides, I think you get into your paces better after 
a preliminary galop. The teetotum starts in the quietest 
manner possible, and you find yourself, insensibly as it were, 
revolving before you are aware that he intends to begin, 



DANCING 131 

With this class of partner you ought to take a number of 
quick and short steps, and to dance evenly as he does, or 
you will infallibly put him out. You require also to have a 
pretty good head before you engage yourself to a teetotum, 
otherwise the continual rotation on your own axis, combined 
with the revolution round another axis situated somewhere 
between you and your partner, and that in a limited space, 
will be almost certain to turn you giddy. 

As the teetotum partner has been so named by me because 
he revolves with the ease and steadiness of a well-known toy 
when at full spin, so may the actions of the wobbler, or 
uncertain partner, be said to resemble in a general way the 
struggles and irregular gyrations exhibited by that same toy 
when on its last legs (or more correctly speaking, when on its 
last leg). The wobbler is, to use an expressive but slang 
word, a t caution ;' for although, from the outbursts of reck- 
lessness which occasionally possess him, an unpractised eye 
might be inclined to class him with the go-ahead dancer, his 
feebleness of purpose and want of dash emphatically demand 
that he should be placed in a class by himself, the third class. 

To begin with, the wobbler holds you in a loose and weak 
manner, so that you feel his hand slipping from your waist 
as you proceed. Now if there is one thing more necessary 
than another, to my thinking, it is that one's partner should 
hold one firmly, tight in fact, the tighter the better, so that 
both may move in unison. Then having no ear for music, the 
wobbler almost invariably makes a false start, gets out of 
time, and has to stop before he has been half way round, or 
else persists in dragging, you along, an unwilling victim, to no 
time or tune at all. As for making his way in a crowded 

K 2 



132 DANCING 

ball-room — what you would call steering, I suppose — he has 
no notion of what such a thing means ; yet he will frequently 
make grand preparations to start when the coast is clear, as 
often miss his opportunity, keep you jigging up and down in 
one corner of the room to be ready when the next opportunity 
presents itself, and when it does, and after several unavailing 
attempts he finally gets off, the chances are that he will be 
bumped by a go-ahead before he is well under weigh. The 
wobbler is far too anxiously engaged in maintaining his 
balance to keep up any thing like a connected conversation 
during a dance ; and should he tread upon your toes — an 
occurrence by-the-by that happens on an average once in 
every round — it is quite an effort for him to gasp out, " I beg 
your pardon f indeed it is ten to one that he will get out of 
step in making the observation. Sometimes a wobbler is 
aware of his deficiencies, (in a general way members of this 
class pride themselves upon dancing well !) in which case he 
will ingeniously endeavour to hide them by hinting that you 
are tired, when indeed you are not, and that you would like 
to rest a little, or that you find the room oppressively hot ; or 
he will disparagingly remark that the place is far too crowded 
for real enjoyment, and that you should have been at the 
Hunt-ball the week before last in the Assembly Rooms ; and 
after keeping you standing still for the greater part of the 
dance, he will at last suggest that perhaps you would like to 
take another turn round (as if you and he had been dancing 
like mad all the while), and before you are fairly off the band 
stops playing, and you look as foolish as you well can. 

I am aware that my remarks upon this last class of dancers 
may seem unnecessarily severe ; but if you only knew how 



DANCING 133 

many yards of grenadine, tulle, and tarlatan I have sacrificed 
to wobblers, and how many fans have been broken to perfect 
atoms by them, you would understand my feelings on the 
subject. It is all very fine to say that such dancers are well- 
intentioned and good-natured. Are good intentions efficient 
substitutes for weak legs, I should like to know ? and are 
irresolution and utter feebleness of purpose counterbalanced 
by sweetness of disposition ? No girl likes to be made an ex- 
hibition of in a ball-room, especially when, as often happens, 
the defects of her partner result in a great measure from his 
never having learnt to dance properly. The greatest infliction 
a tall girl can endure is to have to dance a round dance with 
a short wobbler. Her only remedy then, is, either to take 
him round and make him keep step to her, or to feign gid- 
diness and ask him to lead her to a seat. 

I have made such a long digression upon the subject of 
gentlemen dancers, that I shall have hardly any space left to 
say much more about the ball. Indeed I scarcely know what 
else there is to tell, for I am sure no one would feel interested 
in the usual common-places people talk to one another on 
such occasions. I wonder how many times, for instance, I 
was asked whether I had been very gay this winter ; how I 
liked the cold weather, and if I skated (I can just a little, two 
or three strokes, you know, with one foot, and run along 
upon the other, and then upon both a little way, just enough 
to make one look interesting, that's all, and I don't care about 
any more); and whether I didn't find the ball-room hot, and 
the hall much cooler (I must have been asked this at least 
twenty times); and did I like novels (I said I doted upon 
them), and wasn't the floor nice and springy ; and would I 



134 DANCING 

have lemonade or claret-cup ; an'd which would I prefer, fowl 
and ham, or turkey and tongue, and would I have a little 
wine, or was I a teetotaller (I had asked for a glass of water, 
which called forth the last brilliant remark), and wasn't the 
room nicely decorated, and what a number of doors there 
seemed to be in the house, and didn't I wonder where they 
all led to, (this original observation was made by Sir Thomas 
Topsawyer's eldest son, so of course I said there were a great 
many, and that I wondered very much where they led to, 
and I should like to peep into one, so he opened -it and dis- 
covered a footman and two maid-servants washing wine- 
glasses, at which he, my partner, was as much disconcerted 
as it is fashionable for a young man in society to be.) 

Poor dear mamma was most anxious about us both, 
and when she saw me dancing with young Topsawyer, I saw 
a flush of pride pass over her face, although, as she after- 
wards said, she was as tired as she well could be; so I pre- 
tended to be deeply interested in what he was talking about 
(something stupid you may be sure, for a greater noodle I 
never met), and put on all those little airs and graces, which, 
together with the most attractive smile I could assume and 
an engaging downcast look (under the eyebrows, you know 
the sort of thing, it is tremendously killing when used with 
discretion), ought to have reached the heart of a stone image, 
but I am afraid had little effect upon him, for he asked 
me several times whether I wouldn't like to sit down. / did 
not mind, only I knew mamma would be angry if I did not 
seem to be making the best use of my opportunity, and get 
engaged to him for another dance. So I managed it in this 
way, very cleverly I think. In the first place I kept hanging 



DANCING 135 

on his arm after the dance was over, talking and making 
play in the manner I have just described, flattering him about 
his skating, of which I had heard he was proud ; and when he 
asked me whether I wasn't tired, or wouldn't like to sit down, 
I said, Oh dear no, the hall and corridors were so delightfully 
cool, and I was so interested in his account of skating, as I 
was so fond of it myself; and then I gave him my fan to 
carry, which of course obliged him to keep near me, till at 
last the band struck up again, whereupon I exclaimed, " Oh 
that darling Mabel waltz ! I do so enjoy it, don't you?" and 
what could the man do, I should like to know, but dance it 
with me ? Dearest mamma was so pleased, and when it was 
over and he led me up to her quite flushed and warm (just 
becomingly flushed you know), she would insist upon 
making room for him on one side of her and me on the 
other, and flattered him so nicely (he is open to that sort of 
thing) but yet judiciously, that he almost coloured up. " I 
saw you enjoying yourselves," said dear mamma. " My 
daughter does so delight in waltzing, and you dance so 
admirably (he is a terrible wobbler) : you have tired yourself, 
I fear, my darling (turning to me and patting my cheek 
with her fan) — she's such a pet, Mr. Topsawyer; I wouldn't 
have her fatigue herself for the world ; you really do go so 
fast, it made me quite giddy to look at you, but I know I can 
trust her in your hands/'" and so on. till the noodle actually 
asked me to dance again after supper — but dear mamma is 
such a capital manager. 

Poor Katey, I am sorry to say, was in sad disgrace ; but 
certainly it was her own fault, for she danced three times 
running with young Crackbrain, who writes for newspapers, or 



136 DANCING 

something low, and, as people say, lives upon his wits, which 
of course must be a very small livelihood for any one. Darling 
mamma spoke quite severely to her about it, and I pitied her 
so, you can't think, for she was dreadfully out of spirits all 
the way home, though mamma and I were quite lively, re- 
marking upon the dresses and things, and picking people to 
pieces in the most cheerful manner imaginable. 

Since the ball we have been comparatively quiet, and I 
have amused myself by throwing together a few thoughts 
upon a subject which rises naturally out of the one of which 
I have been treating — I fear at too great length. What it is 
I will tell you perhaps in a future essay. 



FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 

n^HE day after the ball we were very tired, as may be 
■*■ imagined, and did not rise until long after our usual 
hour. I got up at nine o'clock, and when I looked in the 
glass, which I always do the first thing, I saw such a perfect 
fright that I immediately drew down the blinds and went to 
bed again. However, we were all up by lunch time, and of 
course began to talk about the previous evening's amusement, 
and to describe to dear Helen the various kinds of dresses 
people had on, and how they looked, and who were particular 
in their attentions ; in fact, to converse as all sensible persons 
do after an affair of the sort. 

Dear mamma was in capital spirits, considering the fatigue 
she had undergone ; and soon after we were seated at lunch 
she turned to me, and with a knowing smile said, " Well, my 
dear, any execution done last night, do you think?" 

I understood what she meant well enough, but was deter- 
mined to appear not to see it ; so I answered, " What an 
extremely odd expression, mamma ! c execution done last 
night ;' what ever can you mean ? a 

Mamma knew I was pretending, so she took no notice of 
my reply, but said : " Well, young Topsawyer certainly did 



138 FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 

seem very much smitten, my dear ; and you managed him so 
nicely, my love. I should not be at all surprised if he were 
to ride over here some fine morning soon." 

" Oh, mamma, how can you be so absurd ?" I said, and 
tried to blush ; but could not if it was ever so, which annoyed 
me excessively, as I wished, for the sake of peace and quiet- 
ness, to make her think there really was something in it, 
although I was perfectly certain there was not : but mamma 
is always so pleased when she fancies she sees her way to 
getting us off suitably, and so vexed and angry with us when 
nothing comes of a flirtation with an eligible parti, that I was 
desirous of humouring her as much as possible. And not- 
withstanding that I was hardly up to blushing, alter the 
exertion I had gone through, I did contrive to hesitate a little, 
and simper in a kind of foolish way, which was nearly if not 
quite as effective as if I had actually coloured. 

Papa, who was at lunch with us, tried to turn the conver- 
sation, and told mamma she ought to know better than put 
such ridiculous notions into the girls' heads (just as if they 
wouldn't come there naturally), and gave us quite a lecture 
upon behaving discreetly, of which we made fine fun when he 
left the room. 

However, this conversation was not altogether wanting in 
results, since it caused me to reflect upon a subject, which in 
times gone by was held to be of some importance by the 
young of both sexes ; I mean, as you will probably have 
already guessed, marriage. 

Why do young women go to balls ? Don't fancy that 
I am about to talk like a tract, because I am not. I simply 
ask the question. Most people would at once reply, "To 



FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 139 

dance, to be sure." But I answer" No." That is the ostensi- 
ble reason certainly, and formerly might have been the real 
one. Young women go to balls in these days just as they go 
to croquet parties, archery meetings, concerts, church, the 
opera, and the Crystal Palace, to show themselves, to be 
exhibited by loving mammas for the inspection of the un- 
married of the opposite sex — in plain words, to hunt for 
husbands. 

Now I am not over-fastidious, and I have no personal 
objection to being publicly exhibited for the abovenamed 
purpose ; still, I think it must be apparent to most people 
that we are reversing the order of things, and that young men 
ought to hunt for wives, and not young women for husbands. 

The question therefore which I propose to discuss is the 
following. Whether the marriage state does not offer, in the 
present condition of society, greater advantages to women 
than it does to men, since we find it so much sought after by 
the former, and so little desired by the latter. 

Now I intend, in treating of this matter, to regard it in 
a plain common-sense light, and to lay aside the sentimental 
notions with which poets and other half-witted persons have 
surrounded it. Moreover, I purpose, as far as I am able, to 
abandon that frivolous style of writing into which I have 
fallen of late, and to round my periods in a manner befitting 
the gravity of my subject. 

In order to bring my brain and mind into proper order for 
this task, I have for some time given up light literature, and 
taken to reading leading articles and reviews in news- 
papers, which previously I have been accustomed to skip. 
For instance, I have read right through several articles in the 



140 FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 

Times on Reform, but I do not think I was much benefited by 
them, as they were all about the working classes, who, as far 
as my experience goes, are much better off than we are, for 
they seem to marry whenever they like upon nothing at all, 
and to live very comfortably upon it too. Then, a few months 
ago, you may remember there was a long review in the same 
paper upon the " Gay Science." I thought by the title that 
it might be in a certain degree entertaining as well as useful, 
but I was horribly disappointed, for any thing so dreadfully 
dry I never read. However, I was determined to go through 
it, and I have no doubt that it was very clever and deep, for 
when I had finished it 1 was quite as ignorant of what the 
Gay Science was as when I began it. But you shall judge 
for yourself whether I have derived any advantage with 
respect to improvement of style, from the course of reading 
I adopted, for I will without further delay give you my ideas 
upon the question proposed above. 

To begin then. There can be no doubt but that we 
(marriageable girls) are a drug in the market ; that there are 
no offers, that there is no demand, that we are unchanged at 
greatly reduced prices, that there is nothing doing, no sales 
effected. Even the quotations that appear daily in the Times 
are, it is to be feared, too often nominal, and in many cases 
merely time bargains. 

These facts granted, how are we to account for them ? 
The generality of people are ready enough with a reason. 
They will tell you with a most plausible air that it is all 
owing to the present system of education for young women. 
They will urge that in the education young ladies receive 
now-a-days, too much is sacrificed to mere accomplishments, 



FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND i 4 i 

which, although to a certain extent valuable to heighten the 
attractions of beauty and wealth, are commonly utterly neg- 
lected when their possessor has effected her object and 
entrapped a partner ; or, when kept up, are comparatively 
speaking useless. 

And thus, these people argue, young men have at last 
come to perceive that when the accomplishments are laid 
aside there is nothing to take their place, nothing else having 
been learnt. Therefore, they go on to say, since accomplish- 
ments have failed, let utility be tried in lieu of them ; let 
young women who wish to do their duty by their husbands 
learn something really useful, how to boil a potato, cook a 
mutton-chop, or cut out their own baby clothes for instance. 

As I have already observed, there is something plausible in 
this style of argument, a style by the way which is most com- 
monly affected by old bachelors and men of the last generation, 
who seem to pride themselves very much upon having made 
the grand discovery that the world is not what it used to be 
some thirty or forty years ago. At the first blush many would 
be inclined to fancy that a girl who knew how to boil a potato 
and cook a mutton-chop would make a more useful wife than 
one who could play Beethoven's sonatas with all the precision, 
execution, and brilliancy of an Arabella Goddard ; since well- 
cooked food is a necessary of life, whereas Beethoven's 
sonatas are not. 

Now there is a story told of Sidney Smith (I say Sidney 
Smith, because it always makes a joke go off better to father 
it upon some well-known wit) which I think may be suitably 
inserted in this place. It appears that Sidney Smith was 
living at one time in very small and inconvenient lodgings ; 



142 FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 

his bedroom, indeed, was so confined that he had only just 
space to turn round in. A friend who came to see him won- 
dered how he could possibly sleep in such a small apartment, 
for, said he, " there isn't room to swing a cat." " I am satis- 
fied with it," replied Sidney Smith, " for you know, after all, 
I shan't often want to swing a cat." 

Just so we may ask what is the use of complaining that 
young women don't know how to boil potatoes, when they 
will never be called upon to boil them. 

The fact of the matter really is, that people who think and 
talk in this absurd way never for a moment reflect that 
however sound their arguments may be with regard to certain 
classes of individuals, they may be utterly untenable when 
applied to others. For instance, my remarks upon the sub- 
ject of marriage are, as coming from a girl who moves in 
society, naturally addressed to people in society, and I con- 
tend that what may be termed the chop and potato theory 
does not hold good of wives in society, although it may of 
wives of people of whom nobody who is anybody takes 
notice. Poor wretches who marry upon a paltry pittance of 
eight hundred or a thousand pounds a year may well wish 
for homely wives, because they cannot afford to move in a 
sphere in which brilliant accomplishments, or, when these are 
laid aside, elegant and distingue frivolities, are appreciated. 
But in society, where a girl who marries ten thousand a year 
is not thought to have done credit to her bringing up, the 
case is widely different. Men among us, men that is to say 
of wealth, family, and fashion, require wives that they can 
show off, in plain language they need ornaments. Butlers, 
cooks, stewards, and housekeepers manage their household 



FIRST. CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 143 

affairs, while nurses and dressmakers very much lessen the 
trouble of incumbrances. It is, therefore, I think, pretty 
plain that for all the ordinary purposes of married life the 
education of a fashionable girl is sufficiently suitable. Nor 
is this education of so superficial a character as is generally 
supposed. Take my own case. I am, as I pointed out in 
my Introductory remarks, well up in geography, modern 
languages, and arithmetic, and have besides a fair know- 
ledge of history. Of course it would never do for a girl to x 
know as much about such things as a governess, or any 
person of that stamp ; therefore, with the exception of a few 
of the more important details, I think a girl's knowledge upon 
these subjects should consist for the most part of certain 
general ideas. For instance, in English history, I know that 
people eat goose on Michaelmas-day, because Queen Eliza- 
beth was dining off that bird when the news reached her of 
the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Well, that is what I call 
one of those important details with which every girl should 
become acquainted ; whereas, when we turn to occurrences of 
a different nature, such as the Reformation, it is quite suffi- 
cient for one to know that Henry the Eighth, and Cardinal 
Wolsey, and the Pope, and Ann Boleyn, and Queen Cathe- 
rine, and Luther, had something to do with it, and that with- 
out them it would perhaps never have happened at all. I say 
it is quite sufficient for one to have some general idea of such 
a subject as this, because if one knew more, it would appear 
as if one learnt history for the sake of knowing something 
about it, which would be thought, and naturally enough, 
absurd; for what does one want with history after one is 
married ? Now this part of her education is what a girl 



144 FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 

receives either at home under a governess, or at a boarding- 
school, and answers to the public-school education of boys, 
and the reading and writing of the lower orders. It is com- 
monly completed, or nearly so, by the time she is fourteen 
or fifteen years old, and has for its chief object the strengthen- 
ing and exercising of the mental faculties, so that in after life 
a girl may be able to get on in the world, and not at the out- 
set of her career be placed at a disadvantage with respect to 
her compeers, as would inevitably be the case were those 
faculties allowed to lie dormant in her childhood. 

The preliminary mental training undergone in youth is 
really the most important part of every body's education, for 
even men who become great scholars and philosophers, 
without this early training, would never be able to get on 
at all in the ordinary affairs of life, notwithstanding their 
cleverness ; and women without it could neither proceed to 
the next step in their education — a step which I shall pre- 
sently describe — nor be fitted for the ordinary duties of 
married life, such as making and receiving morning calls, 
presiding at dinner parties, and so forth. Indeed, the system 
of education thus early undergone, is that which produces 
the most permanent effects ; and I have known many married 
ladies who, notwithstanding that they had forgotten most of 
their accomplishments, could still go through the multiplica- 
tion-table if they began at the beginning, and some few (but 
these were certainly extreme cases) who could bear being 
dodged in it. 

I think I have thus clearly shown that the preliminary 
education of a fashionable girl is, considered as a ground- 
work, eminently suited for one who is about to enter the 



FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 145 

marriage state. If therefore I can as clearly demonstrate 
that the after education of such a girl, the finishing, as it is 
sometimes vulgarly called, is actually undergone for the ex- 
press purpose of enabling a girl to acquire a husband, then I 
shall have fairly proved that the present depressed state of 
the matrimonial market is not to be attributed to a faulty or 
defective system of education. 

When a girl gets to be about fifteen years old, she begins 
to neglect most of her former studies, to throw aside her 
grammar, verbs, geography "and so forth, and to look upon 
her governess as a " tiresome old thing," and the schoolroom 
as a place which it is quite beneath her dignity to enter, 
except when she has to take her music lesson, or practise her 
scales. She looks forward with eagerness to the time when 
she shall come out, and feels a degree of innocent curiosity 
about the external world of fashionable dissipation, from which 
she has hitherto kept aloof. 

When these symptoms exhibit themselves, an ambitious 
and affectionate mother forthwith proceeds to change the 
whole plan of her daughters education. She allows her 
more freedom ; the girl takes her place in the drawing-room 
after a dinner-party, or when there is company; she joins in 
the social croquet gatherings at home, and is even allowed, by 
way of getting her hand in, to carry on an incipient flirtation 
with a cousin or some harmless but presentable youth. She 
goes up with the family to town, where she is introduced to 
a West-End dressmaker, to be more or less disfigured accord- 
ing to the taste of the artiste and the fashion of the hour. 
She is taught music, singing,- and drawing, by the best 
known, and consequently the most expensive, masters ; and 

L 



146 FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 

when she returns to the family seat, a finishing governess, 
a very superior person indeed, sees that she does not neglect 
these accomplishments ; and in addition endeavours to impart 
to her manners, bearing, and conversation, an air of grace, 
composure, and ton, which it is absolutely necessary she 
should acquire before she can be considered fit to emerge 
into the world of fashion. This done, she comes out, say 
at the county ball, and is henceforth let loose upon society, 
with instructions, tacit but understood, that being now well 
versed in the gentle art, she is expected to angle for, hook, 
play with, land, and if she or mamma should think fit, throw 
in again, a male of her species. 

From this period her education is left very much in her 
own hands, and as she has always one object in view, namely 
the capture of a husband, she varies it according to the 
fashion and taste of the times. Do men of position and 
wealth seem to approve of fast girls ? she becomes fast and 
talks slang. Do they, on the contrary, profess a liking for 
a girl who has " something in her, you know ?* she attends 
lectures on Science made easy, and talks of learning Latin. 

I can just remember, a few years ago, what a stir there 
was when some benefactor of the human race having coined 
a pleasing euphemism, all the female world ran mad in pork- 
pie hats, after "pretty horsebreakers." Slang words and 
expressions were then all the 'go/ and had Mr. Hotten's 
Dictionaiy of slang been published at that time, I have no 
doubt that it would have had an enormous sale as a birthday 
present to young ladies from their affectionate mammas. 

A short time afterwards an impression arose that the 
education of girls should not differ so much as it then 



FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 147 

did from that of boys; that it would do girls all the good 
in the world, as the phrase goes, if they were generally 
instructed in the rudiments of Latin, and some bold men 
even ventured to add Greek. Many girls, anxious to an- 
ticipate the opinion which they supposed most men would 
hold upon the question, actually began to learn Latin ; and 
I know one who attributes her engagement and subsequent 
marriage with the heir presumptive to a peerage, entirely 
to the fact that at a dinner-party, when he was hesitating 
over a quotation from Horace, not being able to remember 
it correctly, she, to use her own phrase, quietly tipped him 
the right words, although they were said as a compliment 
to her, something about a girl of the name of Lalage, I know, 
because he always speaks of her as his Lalage in consequence. 
But this was an exception, and I never heard of another 
case. The dodge of learning Latin was a false move entirely 
on the part of the girls who attempted to put it in practice. 
Most of them are old maids to this day, and the rest married 
badly, not one more than five thousand a year. The idea 
was started by some stupid old professor or other, who of 
course had no knowledge of life, and I must say the girls 
were very much to .blame for falling in with it so hastily. 
A moment's reflection would have convinced them that it 
could never have originated In society, where, as I have 
shown in a previous essay, all eligible partis are unanimous 
in condemning too much learning in a girl. A great many 
men too are fond of making a show of a little Latin, especially 
dull stupid men ; they think they can thus with comparatively 
little trouble impose upon the credulous, by making their 
dulness and stupidity look as much like wisdom and pro- 

L 2 



148 FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 

fundity as possible. These men of course would regard with 
horror the idea of ladies learning Latin and Greek ; for once 
married, their mask would be raised and their folly revealed. 

I have already said that when once girls have come out 
they are left very much to their own resources, and allowed 
to adopt any plan which they may deem expedient for the 
furtherance of the grand object they have in view ; and, as 
I shall presently show, it is so much to their own interest to 
use every exertion in order to succeed, that as a rule they 
may safely be left to work by themselves. It will, however, 
sometimes happen that an eccentric, wilful girl will refuse to 
put her whole soul into her occupation, and will even exhibit 
a disinclination to adopt those schemes and plans for conquest 
which experienced matrimonial brokers have ascertained from 
long practice to be infallible in their operation. Then it is 
that the influence of an affectionate mother may be brought 
to bear, with oftentimes the best effect, upon the refractory 
maiden. By a judicious mixture of flattery, cajolery, and 
threats, a mamma who has her daughter's happiness at heart 
will either force an unwilling bride to the altar, or, at the very 
least, be enabled to rouse a girl who shows an inclination to 
flag in the pursuit of a husband, and induce her to recom- 
mence the chase with redoubled zest. 

Looking back then to the question at issue, we find that 
not only does a fashionable girl receive a preliminary educa- 
tion of a sufficiently solid and useful nature for one in her 
position in life, but also that she is in addition specially 
trained, when at a most susceptible age, for the great race for 
wealth and position, a race by-the-by which all her well- 
wishers desire may end in a tie. It is plain, therefore, that if. 



FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 149 

as is undoubtedly the case, the shares in the old-established 
firm of Cupid, Mammon, and Co. (limited), (the first-named 
gentleman has now retired from the active business of the 
concern, but still retains a portion of his interest in it as 
sleeping partner,) are quoted at very much below par, the 
system of education in vogue among the shareholders has 
nothing to do with their depreciation. 

Having fairly proved this in the preceding pages, I now 
proceed to consider the question proposed in the first part of 
this article, namely, whether the marriage state does not offer 
in the present condition of society, greater advantages to 
women than it does to men, since we find it so much sought 
after by the former, and so little desired by the latter; for I 
consider that my answer to this question, which I may at once 
say will be in the affirmative, will, in my opinion, account for 
the extraordinary "tightness" in the matrimonial market. 
Assuming, as I think I am fairly entitled to do, that the 
object of marriage now-a-days is not what it used to be in 
the times when men and women married for love, to perpetuate 
their race, and to be a comfort and support to one another, 
let me pass in brief review the several inducements which the 
marriage state offers respectively to men and women. 

I will take the sterner sex first. Rich men, men of birth 
and fashion, are in these days mostly driven into matrimony 
by the force of circumstances. They marry sometimes for 
the sake of gaining a certain air of respectability, after having 
lived a fast life ; sometimes in order to retain in one branch 
of the family a title or an entailed estate ; at others, that they 
maybe better able to perform those hospitable and charitable 
duties which are expected from persons in their position and 



1 5 o FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 

of their property. They can generally allege some sensible 
matter-of-fact reasons for abandoning the freedom of single 
life and the unrestricted affections, which, if they consulted 
their own inclinations alone, they would unhesitatingly prefer. 

Of course such men never dream of loving their wives ; in 
fact, they are for the most part so blase as to be incapable of 
feeling so pure an affection as love. Old-established custom, 
indeed, requires that a certain small amount of friendship 
should be exhibited, at all events in public, between married 
people ; but beyond bearing his name, and occasionally his 
children, a wife in society has little in common with her 
husband, and is, as I hope shortly to show, much freer than 
when she was unmarried. 

On the other hand, poor men, men whose annual incomes 
are reckoned by hundreds instead of by thousands of pounds, 
cheerfully accept their position and exaggerate the so-called 
extravagance of women, in order that they may with a better 
show of reason plead their poverty as an excuse for preserving 
the liberty of bachelor life. Even men of good income are 
made so comfortable in their chambers and at their clubs, 
that, unless influenced by some such powerful motives as I 
have enumerated above, they feel disinclined to change their 
present condition of luxurious ease for the doubtful pleasures 
and the undoubted anxieties of matrimony. Moreover, most 
men who are not born to riches are such slaves to business 
for the first forty or fifty years of their lives, that they have 
no time to go courting, or if they have the time, have no op- 
portunity of moving in the society of fashionable people, and 
so meeting with well-bred girls. And when they have at 
last amassed enormous fortunes, and begin to think when 



FIRST, CA TCH YOUR HUSBAND 151 

they are turned of fifty that they are nearly old enough to 
marry, they find they have become such confirmed old 
bachelors, that it would be perfect misery to them to be 
obliged to leave off their peculiar habits, to drop their old 
cronies, and to enter almost as it were upon a new state of 
existence. So they take Punch's advice, and don't marry at all. 

Thus it will be seen that the inducements held out to men 
to enter into the holy bonds of matrimony are, except in rare 
instances, few and unimportant. With women, however, the 
case is very different. Marriage is all in all to them. Not 
because their warm hearts, their young affections pant for 
reciprocal emotions in the bosoms of the opposite sex, but 
because marriage is to them the commencement of a new, 
free, and unrestrained life. Young women when single are, 
as I have already pointed out, forced to go through such 
a round of dissipation and gaiety in the search for husbands, 
that from very weariness many of the less ambitious would 
give up the chase altogether, were it not for the stern decrees 
of mamma, who has no notion of having a parcel of old maid 
daughters hanging on to her skirts, bringing her dyed hairs in 
sorrow to the grave, and reflecting discredit upon her general- 
ship in not having sold her goods when they were juicy and 
fresh. Subjected to continual taunts from their affectionate 
parents because they have not managed to get themselves 
1 off,' it is very natural that they should adopt any expedient 
to become free, and severally accept a hand without a heart 
for the sake of acquiring establishments of their own, with 
the position accorded to women who have married well. 

A mother, too, who has united her daughters to eligible 
men, may indeed congratulate herself upon the success which 



152 FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 

has attended her efforts. Relieved from the cares of mater- 
nity, she, with the assistance of a skilful artiste, applies herself 
to repair the ravages of time on her own person, and presently 
blossoms with perennial youth. Her frowns relax. Her. 
daughters, whom she formerly upbraided in harsh and un- 
feeling terms, she now treats with deference and respect : she 
has a conscious pride in talking of their position in society, 
the wealth of their husbands, and the like. Moreover, if her 
daughters have married above them, as they will have done 
under her good management, her circle of acquaintance is 
enlarged, she herself rises in the social scale, and has real 
claims upon the attentions of the world. 

And to the girls themselves, what a change for the better ! 
Possessed of wealth and position, what can a young woman 
want ? Horses and carriages await her orders, a crowd of 
menials do her bidding, she spends the season in town, the 
winter at her country seats, and the autumn in a continental 
trip, or a cruise in the Mediterranean, while, above all, she 
has the freedom of married life without that serious draw- 
back, the obtrusive love of a husband. Married for money, 
she has all that money can procure, while her affections, en- 
tirely disengaged, are free to roam wherever they please. Old 
lovers and new ones hover about her like wasps round a 
honey-pot. They will give her plenty of love, and her hus- 
band will give her plenty of money. It has been urged that 
husbands object to their wives having lovers. They used to 
do so, it is true ; but we have changed all that, we have taken 
a leaf out of our neighbours' book, and society rather requires 
than not that a young married woman, with any pretensions 
to ton, should have a lot of young men dangling after her. 



FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 153 

A married woman of the present day therefore is far freer 
than an unmarried woman. The one has every luxury that 
wealth can furnish, and can flirt to her heart's content with 
young men, regardless of whether they are rich or poor ; the 
other, depending almost for her future existence upon making 
a good match, is unable to carry a flirtation to any length 
until mamma has decided upon the eligibility of the parti, 
and looks forward with feverish anxiety to the time when, 
having gleefully hooked some blase man of wealth and 
position, she has at length attained to the haven where she 
would be. 

Consequently, the marriage state affording, as I have 
shown, so many greater advantages to women than it does to 
men, the natural result follows, viz., that the supply of would- 
be wives is much greater than the demand for them, hence 
the slowness with which sales are effected, and the difficulty 
of striking a bargain. 

Having discovered the source of the evil, now for the 
remedy, which, if my proposals are carried out, will be sharp 
and decisive. 

I have heard that among the ancient Greeks men who did 
not marry after a certain time of life were compelled annually 
to run the gauntlet between a double row of single girls 
armed with whips, but I should be averse to a proceeding of 
so cruel a kind as that. Besides, I do not think I could 
make up my mind to strike any man very hard if it was 
ever so. 

No. I propose the following simple remedies. That the 
clubs should be abolished, the whitebait in the river poisoned, 
and the Star and Garter at Richmond razed to the ground. 



154 FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 

I would then form a company to erect blocks of houses fitted 
with model sets of chambers, and as soon as they were built, 
pass a law compelling all bachelors to leave their luxurious 
lodgings in private houses, or their rooms in the Albany, and 
other places, and take up their abode in the company's 
houses, which being model houses would of course be su- 
premely uncomfortable ; and in addition I would pass another 
law forcing all single men possessed of means to marry, to 
go round with a basket to the butcher, greengrocer, and fish- 
monger, and choose and provide their own dinner every day. 
These enactments would, I think, prove sufficient to raise the 
demand for wives. 

Next, in order to produce an appearance of lessening the 
supply of young women, I would have all single girls take 
a solemn oath never to marry, and I would advise at least 
one-third of them to take the veil at once, and place them- 
selves under the superintendence of some well-known ritual- 
istic divines, in the empty club-houses, which might at very 
little expense be turned into convents. 

Then, so soon as the demand for wives had considerably 
increased, as I am convinced it would in a very short time, 
a portion of the girls should be absolved from their oath, and 
exhibited for sale, and when these had been bought another 
lot put up, and so on until the whole were disposed of. 

I am certain my plan would answer, for it is based upon 
a principle in Political Economy, which I have heard papa's 
city friends say is a sound one (of course I know nothing of 
Political Economy, I only speak from hearsay), viz., that the 
market is cheapest to those who don't want to buy, or, which 
comes to the same thing, pretend they don't want to buy. 



FIRST, CATCH YOUR HUSBAND 155 

You can see how successfully the principle works in a small 
way among some of the clergy. High Church curates are 
always preaching up celibacy and the superior holiness of 
single life, yet no class of men marry so rapidly as they do. 
This fact does not lessen, as might be supposed, the force of 
my remarks concerning the dulness of the demand for wives, 
because curates, you know, unless well-connected or likely to 
be bishops, are not looked upon by fashionable girls as 
Society matrimonially considered. 

I may add that I shall be happy at any time to supply 
further details respecting my proposals for remedying the 
evils which exist in the present system of procuring husbands,, 
and shall also be ready to come down with a handsome sub- 
scription towards building model lodging-houses to make 
bachelors miserable. 



ON BISHOPS 

\ T TERE I to speak according to my own private judgment, 
* * which of course no girl who has had correct principles 
instilled into her ought to do, I am afraid I should say that 
for my own part I do not think much of bishops. 

To be sure they stand out above the dead level of the 
clerical world, and give a finish to clerical society, just as 
turrets disposed by some skilful architect relieve the sky line 
of a flat facade, or as stout iron posts, with big knobs, placed 
at regular intervals, break the uniformity of a line of railings. 
Still this merely ornamental and picturesque episcopal pro- 
perty cannot be said, in my opinion, to compensate for the 
absence of practical utility. Even Mr. Alban, who, as a de- 
vout High- Churchman, is a staunch upholder of episcopacy, 
and whose constant dictum is " no bishop, no priest," quite 
laughed at the idea of our bishops being possessed of any real 
authority. I remember at the time when we introduced into 
the parish some of the latest ritualistic fashions, poor papa, 
who has not the nerve to carry out any great reformation 
unaided, became very much alarmed, because some stupid 
old farmers threatened to make a complaint to the bishop 
of "these here new-fangled notions," as they styled our 



ON BISHOPS 157 

improvements, and consulted with Mr. Alban as to the de- 
sirability of giving way to them ; but Mr. Alban, in his clever 
manner, said, his motto was that of the Church with which 
he hoped we should soon be in complete accord, viz. 11071 
possumtis (whatever that may be); so that papa must on no 
account think of yielding a single point, and that as for the 
appeal to the bishop, he did not care a straw for it, as the 
poor old fellow could do no more than give the malcontents 
fair words, and dismiss them with his blessing, which, as Mr. 
Alban added, could not do much harm. This conversation 
naturally introduced the subject of episcopal authority, and 
I recollect Mr. Alban saying, that the whole spiritual bench 
appeared as if they had received instructions very similar to 
those given to the Watch in Much Ado about Nothing, and 
that with regard to ritualism especially, he really believed 
some Dogberry had given them such a command as this — 
" If you meet a ritualist, you may suspect him, by virtue of 
your office, to be no true churchman ; and, for such kind of 
men, the less you meddle or make with them, why, the more 
is for your orthodoxy." I do not wish you for one moment 
to suppose that Mr. Alban intended to speak disparagingly 
of the bishops, for he is far too wise to let slip words which 
might at any future time be made use of to his own dis- 
advantage, — he merely desired, I am sure, to quiet papa, and 
show him how unreasonable his fears were. Moreover, as 
regards myself again, I would bid you notice that I have 
said nothing against bishops, I have only intimated that 
were I to exercise my private judgment, I would give such 
and such an opinion concerning them ; but as, for conscien- 
tious reasons, I never do exercise my private judgment, 



158 ON BISHOPS 

therefore this opinion may, to all intents and purposes, be 
regarded as never having been expressed. 

I should be, indeed, vexed if any one thought I was 
capable of performing so wicked an action as that of 
speaking contemptuously of the episcopal bench. Bishops, 
as we all know, and as no one is more ready to admit than 
I, are very much looked up to in society. A dean is by no 
means a bad substitute for a bishop (English, of course), 
being nearly as rare, and I have known people, for want of 
a higher dignitary, make a very good show before their 
friends with an archdeacon, but after all none equal a 
bishop. There is a something in the rich, oily tones of a 
bishop's voice, and in the look of his legs, that never fails to 
rivet one's attention and command one's respect. I do not 
know whether the fact that many of them have been heads 
of colleges has any thing to do with this indefinable some- 
thing, but when we were all in Cambridge, one May term, I 
noticed a very similar, I won't say pomposity, because we do 
not call people in society pompous, but — well, dignified con- 
descension in an old friend of papa's, at whose house we 
dined, and he was the Master of some college. 

It is to be regretted that many, too many, of our prelates 
spring from a very low origin indeed, and I think the Prime 
Minister, or whoever is the proper person, ought to be more 
careful in making inquiries about birth and parentage, &c., 
before he offers a bishopric to any one. However, once pro- 
moted to the bench, society, always lenient, forgets the obscurity 
which may shroud the lineage of the most reverend Doctor, 
and permits him to impale with the arms of his see some 
fanciful device invented by an ingenious heraldic engraver. 



ON BISHOPS i S9 

But to come to the subject of this essay. We know a bishop 
— I do not mean the bishop of the diocese ; of course we are 
acquainted with him in a general kind of way, that is, we 
meet him now and then, and he has partaken of lunch at 
our house at Confirmations. He is a quiet, well-behaved, 
good-natured old man, but dreadfully slow. Says the same 
things over and over again every time he comes. — Delightful 
neighbourhood; picturesque spot; fine old church. You must 
be very comfortable here. Of course we say we are, very. — 
Gratifying to find so many young people for confirmation, — 
very gratifying ; nice healthy children, too, one or two girls 
remarkably good-looking, didn't you think so, Miss Gushing- 
ton 1 Must be something in the air of the place conducive 
to beauty, eh 1 ha, ha, ha, — and then the old boy chuckles, 
thinking he has made me such a pretty compliment. 

No ! our bishop is a personal friend, only Colonial I regret 
to say, and Colonial bishops, like Colonial port, are very 
inferior to the European article. Still for all that he is a 
bishop. We became acquainted with him in this way. He 
came down to a neighbouring town to hold a missionary 
meeting in aid of his diocese (Dahomey), and when papa 
saw a notice of it in the county paper, he mentioned, in a 
casual kind of way, that when he was a little boy he had been 
at the same school with the bishop ; whereupon dear mamma, 
who never loses an opportunity, urged him to renew his 
acquaintance with him, which papa rather reluctantly con- 
sented to do. So he attended the meeting, and when it was 
over introduced himself ; and after he had related a great 
many incidents of their school days to the bishop, in order to 
bring himself to his recollection, the latter said he had some 



i do ON BISHOPS 

faint remembrance of papa, and that he was enchanted, 
perfectly enchanted, to meet him again. (I do not believe 
for one moment that he recollected any thing about him, 
only he was obliged to say he did when papa pressed him so 
much.) Well, after this, they had a little conversation, arid 
papa invited him to stay a few days at the rectory, and, as 
being a Colonial bishop, he had of course plenty of spare 
time on his hands, he accepted the invitation. 

I well remember the thrill that ran through my own bosom, 
and I have reason to believe through the bosom of every 
other member of the family too, when papa returned and told 
us that the bishop was coming to stay a week with us. I pre- 
pared myself by reading Paley's Evidences, and Butler's 
Analogy, for it would have been of no use to have practised 
one's accomplishments, since he was more than middle-aged, 
and married too. Still I always like to create a favourable 
impression, especially at first. Well, he came, quite the 
bishop, shovel hat, apron, and gaiters, and so polite and 
courteous, we were all delighted with him, and I had no idea 
until then how nice bishops were. I must confess I was a 
little shocked next morning, to see him out of my window 
walking with papa in the garden before breakfast, wearing 
an old Jim-Crow hat, but as he did not seem to feel that he 
had placed himself in a false position nobody alluded to the 
circumstance. It was pleasant summer weather while he was 
with us, and we were quite at a loss to determine how we 
should act about croquet, whether we should have our games 
as usual, leaving him to look on, for none of us suspected 
that a bishop would condescend to play, or, as that might 
seem a little discourteous to our visitor, give up our games of 






ON BISHOPS 161 

croquet so long as he was with us, and we had agreed to adopt 
the latter course, when to our utter astonishment he intro- 
duced the subject himself, and actually asked me, of all people 
in the world, to teach him. Consequently, every day we 
either played amongst ourselves, or invited a few friends to 
make up a croquet party, and the bishop invariably joined us. 
He played very badly to be sure, but I could sympathize with 
him on that point ; besides, no one expects a dignitary of the 
church to be a proficient in such a frivolous game. At first 
none of us liked to treat him*as one usually treats enemies, 
and send his ball a long way off, for we thought he would 
scarcely consider himself justified in putting his episcopal 
legs to the ignoble task of fetching it back again, of course 
he would never think of running, you know, (I generally skip 
along under such circumstances, as I think it gives one a light 
and fairy-like appearance,) so, although we pretended to try 
and hit his ball, we always missed it, and he, poor simple 
ecclesiastic, never once suspected our strategem, and congra- 
tulated himself in the most innocent way upon his supposed 
immunity from harm. However, this did not last long, for 
George, who, as papa very properly told him afterwards, has 
no respect whatever for constituted authorities, declared that 
the bishop spoiled the game, and he should take the earliest 
opportunity of treating him as if he were only an ordinary 
human being (just think of that), and consequently, when 
that opportunity did come, sent the poor bishop's ball flying 
miles away. The injured prelate turned a look half of pity, 
half of remonstrance, upon George (entirely lost upon him) 
which seemed to say, "Young man, I should very much 
like to administer a grave rebuke to you," and with a slow 

M 



1 62 ON BISHOPS 

but beautiful episcopal stalk, went to look for his ball, which 
he reached in about five minutes from the time when he 
started in search of it. No sooner had George set the 
example than every body, with the exception of myself, 
seemed to think it fine fun to worry the poor bishop in every 
possible way, sending his ball often immense distances ; but 
he preserved his dignified demeanour wonderfully well, and 
amply retaliated upon his foes by the length of time he kept 
them waiting while he walked deliberately in the direction 
in which his ball had been sent. I pitied him immensely, 
especially his dear legs, which must have been so dreadfully 
hot with that apron over them, and those tight-fitting 
gaiters. 

Of course we took care to show off our " live bishop," 
as George most irreverently termed him, and made a point 
of calling upon all the notabilities of the neighbourhood and 
taking him with us. We had two really splash dinner-parties 
also during his visit, and it was quite delightful to hear papa 
say when dinner was announced, "Bishop" (we always 
called him bishop in his presence, but when we have had 
occasion to mention him before friends we have sometimes 
spoken of him as " dear William," to let them know on what 
intimate terms we were with him), " Bishop, will you take 
Lady Topsawyer in to dinner ?" and then again, so soon as 
we were settled in our places at table, a Bishop ?" where- 
upon that reverend prelate would say grace in such an 
aristocratic manner that no one could make out a single 
word, which deeply impressed every body. 

I can assure you that we have been quite looked up to by 
all the neighbourhood, in consequence of our bishop, and are 



ON BISHOPS 163 

considered authorities on many subjects. For instance, does 
conversation turn upon missionary topics, the company 
naturally expect the Gushington family, or some member of 
it, to retail anecdotes of missionary life, received direct from 
the fountain head, the episcopal lips ; and, of course, on all 
church matters, our opinion is invariably deferred to ; but 
should some ignorant sceptic ever venture to question its 
accuracy, we should always be able to defend ourselves, by 
interposing our bishop. Indeed, there is no knowing all the 
good that we have derived from our acquaintance with that 
eminent Divine, and for my own part I do not hesitate to 
say that whenever I think of him I feel myself becoming quite 
theological. This reminds me to say, that I might have 
spared myself the trouble of reading Pale^s Evidences and 
Butler's Analogy, for the dear-bishop never spoke once during 
his stay with us upon any thing even remotely connected 
with the subjects of those works. 

Poor fellow, after staying in England as long as he decentV 
could, he returned to Dahomey, and I managed partially 
to assuage my grief by subscribing, out of the allowance papa 
makes us for dress and things, a small sum towards pro- 
viding him with a full suit of episcopal vestments in the latest 
and most correct taste, so that he might be able, not as 
George said, to astonish the natives, but to impress upon 
them the importance of seasonable colours and chaste cere- 
monial. The whole trousseau (I hope there is no impropriety 
in using this word to signify the episcopal robes ; I should 
think not, for I have heard, somewhere, that a bishop is said 
to be married to his see) was most expensively got up, and 
consisted, so far as I can remember, of sandals of purpk 

M 2 



i6~ 4 ON BISHOPS 

velvet, banded with cloth of gold, jewelled ; cassock of purple 
silk, trained; rochet of fine lawn, edged with Irish point-lace ; 
alb and girdle of fine linen ; tunicle of blue silk, banded and 
fringed with silver; dalmatic of gold-coloured silk, banded 
and fringed with gold ; mitre of cloth of gold, embroidered 
with passion-flowers ; gloves of purple silk, embroidered with 
gold ; ring, a sapphire surrounded with brilliants ; and a 
pastoral staff of ivory and ebony set with topaz, emeralds, 
and carbuncles. How beautiful he must have looked when 
full dressed! If, after all this display, the poor blacks re- 
fused to be converted, I can only say they did not deserve 
to have a bishop sent out to them at all. 

I must make a few remarks upon the pastoral staff, for I 
take some credit of the design to myself, as the principle 
upon which it was formed was entirely new, and partly of my 
suggestion. The staff was divided into four lengths, for the 
sake of convenience in packing it up. The several parts 
screwed into one another, and the novelty of the design con- 
sisted in the fact that with the exception of the head of the 
staff or crook, which was solid, the separate parts were hollow, 
so that the staff, when fixed together, formed a series of com- 
partments, one above the other, and my suggestion was that 
these compartments should be utilized, and so fitted up that 
the dear bishop might carry small but necessary articles in 
them, when he went a journey through a wild country, where 
he would find it inconvenient to take much luggage. Acting 
upon this idea, the manufacturers of the staff, Messrs. Soft, 
Sawder, and Sons, the well-known inan-milliners and clerical 
decorators, contrived matters so well, that one division held a 
set of five circular cakes of shaving soap, in the ecclesiastical 



ON BISHOPS 165 

colours, to be used respectively according to the seasons, a 
razor, strop, and shaving-brush ; another a tooth-brush, clean 
neck-cloth, and a box of Pulmonic wafers ; and the third, a 
small bottle exactly fitted to the cavity, containing some of 
the oldest and finest French cognac that money could pro- 
cure. I had serious thoughts at one time, of taking out a 
patent for this style of staff, but when I considered that the 
demand for such articles was necessarily limited, and more 
than that, was rendered unnecessarily so by the fact that many 
degenerate prelates, especially in England, positively per- 
formed their functions without any pastoral staff whatever, 
I did not feel justified in putting papa to the expense such a 
course would entail, as he would naturally have to furnish me 
with the money I required. 

Although I have given it as my opinion that Colonial 
bishops stand lower in the social scale than English bishops, 
yet I must admit that the former have a far finer sense of 
what is due to the dignity of their office than the latter, for 
however savage the people may be who inhabit their diocese, 
the first business of importance they undertake after they are 
nominated, is, to provide themselves (by subscription) with a 
full set of episcopal paraphernalia at an ecclesiastical ware- 
house, whereas the majority of our English bishops rarely 
trouble their heads about such matters. 

Having assisted in a small way to equip our dear bishop for 
his journey to his diocese, I have naturally taken considerable 
interest in bishops ever since, and whenever we are in London 
I make a point of looking out for them, and I may without 
vanity say that I have by diligence and perseverance acquired 
a certain degree of knowledge of their customs and habits. 



1 66 ON BISHOPS 

Every one remembers that old story of the Prince Regent 
and Fox, how they laid a bet as to which should see the 
greater number of cats in a walk along Pall Mall, and how 
Fox won because he was obliged to take the sunny side 
of the street, the Prince having chosen the shady side as the 
more agreeable. Well, I have often thought that had there 
been as many Colonial bishops in England then as now, 
Fox would have won his bet with equal ease, had it concerned 
bishops instead of cats, for in the course of my episcopal 
investigations I have observed that bishops appear to be 
as fond of the sunshine as those well-known domestic pets. 
Curiously enough, too, they seem to favour the very spot 
which was the scene of the wager, for I have met I do not 
know how many strolling along the north side of Pall Mall. 
Regent Street also they affect in the afternoon. I fancy they 
like to look at their own portraits in the photograph-shops, 
which, as my readers probably have observed, abound on the 
sunny side. I have often seen a bishop looking at a long 
row of episcopal celebrities, pretending not to notice that his 
own photograph was among them. I dare say, you know, 
they like to hear the comments made by bystanders, and to 
ascertain whether they are recognized by them or not. In 
Oxford Street one rarely comes across them, it is too bustling 
a place; although I once did see a bishop there standing 
staring at a poor cab-horse that had fallen down, and look- 
ing as if he longed to go and sit on its head, and very 
useful he could have made himself had he done so, for he 
was a big heavy man. As one proceeds Eastward, bishops 
become rarer and rarer. I have been obliged once or twice 
to pass through that exhilarating spot, Queen Square, Blooms- 



ON BISHOPS 167 

bury, and on two occasions I have met a bishop in Great 
Ormond Street. I was quite at a loss for some time to 
account for the phenomenon, until I remembered that there 
was a home for poor children there, and I have no doubt 
now but that when the little things are disobedient and 
fractious, their nurses quiet them by threatening to send for 
a bishop, and in some extreme cases are actually obliged to 
put their threat into execution. I can quite fancy that the 
most unruly children would be awed by a grave rebuke from 
a bishop, especially when accompanied b^ a slight applica- 
tion of the pastoral staff. 

Exhibitions of pictures I have ascertained to be favourite 
haunts of bishops. We have seldom been to either of the 
Water Colours without, to use a sporting phrase, flushing a 
Home or Colonial; and at the British Institution I am pretty 
certain that one afternoon we actually put up an archbishop, 
we were not quite sure, but the dignitary in question un- 
doubtedly resembled in a most remarkable manner the 
photographs of the distinguished hierarch of a northern pro- 
vince. At the Royal Academy, of course, one may often 
start a whole covey ; and I have sometimes amused myself 
on fashionable days by sitting on one of the seats in the 
centre of the middle room, and counting the time that elapsed 
between the entry of the bishops, and I have found, on com- 
paring my notes, that fifteen minutes would be about the 
average. I admit that this calculation may be open to 
objection, on the ground that it is sometimes difficult to 
distinguish a bishop from a dean, on account of the hat and 
gaiters. This is true, and therefore I am unwilling to speak 
positively on the point. However, I generally try to catch 



1 68 ON BISHOPS 

the apron, and in all but a very few instances have succeeded 
in doing so. Yet in the face of this excess of bishops, people 
talk of the extension of the episcopate ! 

I have said that I thought it quite a startling phenomenon 
to light upon a bishop in Bloomsbury, but I forgot at the 
time to mention the encounter, yes, the dreadful encounter 
I had with one in the British Museum. You will naturally 
ask how it was that I happened to be in so unfashionable a 
locality. I will tell you. I took it into my head that I should 
like to have the entree into the large reading-room by means 
of a reader's ticket, so papa asked a "respectable house- 
holder" (our landlord), for they only require a person of that 
stamp, to certify that I was of age, and a fit and proper 
person to be admitted into the reading-room, and so forth. 
I went pretty often for a week or so, when I became tired of 
the sameness of the thing. Helen, and Katey, or papa, 
generally walked with me in the morning, and if they did not 
come for me again in the evening, I used to return home in a 
cab. With the exception of the smell of leather which per- 
vaded it, I admired the room, and thought the cushioned 
chairs, the reading and writing-desks, the ink and the new 
pens (two to each person), perfectly delightful. I soon became 
acquainted with the ways of the place, for one of the officials, 
a superior kind of person, quite a gentleman in fact, which 
I was surprised at, when he saw me puzzling over the 
catalogue (and no wonder), came up to me and explained 
the meaning of the press marks before each entry, and the 
use of the little tickets one has to sign for each book, and 
how particular one should be in receiving these tickets back 
again when one had finished with the book, so that before 






ON BISHOPS 1 69 

long I understood the whole arrangement, and very compli- 
cated I thought it. This good-natured official told me that 
there were two rows of desks set apart specially for ladies, to 
which no gentlemen ever were admitted, but he added that I 
need not sit at those desks unless I wished to do so. I thought 
at first I would, but when I saw that the few girls of my own 
age who were in the building to a man (a woman I mean) 
preferred seating themselves promiscuously, and that only 
persons of a certain age occupied the reserve^ seats, I 
changed my opinion, and took my place at any desk where 
there happened to be a vacancy. 

I quite enjoyed myself, for I used to order a novel and a 
lot of other books as well (any books of which the titles 
sounded learned), for I thought if I appeared to come merely 
in order to read novels, the people in authority might con- 
sider I was abusing my right of entry; and whenever I be- 
came tired of reading, I wrote letters (I took in a supply of 
note-paper and envelopes on purpose), and my friends say I 
never proved so good a correspondent as during the time 
I attended at the Museum. However, I am wandering away 
from my subject in a most random manner. About my 
encounter with the bishop. I was standing one day inside 
the circular desk, which contains the catalogue, looking for 
some book, when just as I had finished writing out my ticket, 
I heard a melodious voice opposite to me cry, " ahem," and, 
looking up, I caught the eye of a tall, gentlemanly-looking 
clergyman, in spectacles, on the other side of the desk, who 
was evidently desirous of attracting my attention. Of course, 
I at once blushed up becomingly, and looked at him in an 
encouraging kind of way, whereupon he held out a blank 



170 ONE IS HOPS 

ticket, and said, " Oh, I beg your pardon, but could you tell 
me what I am to do with this, and how I am to fill it up, for 
I am quite a stranger to the place." I put on as engaging an 
air as I could, and pretended to be uncertain upon the point 
myself, although I knew exactly what to tell him, and sim- 
pered over it, and said how dreadfully complicated it always 
seemed to me, and that I never should understand it, never, 
because I thought a confession of stupidity frankly made 
would prove attractive. But, to my great disappointment, so 
soon as he perceived that I was hesitating and simpering 
about the matter, he shut me up at once, saying quickly, as 
if he was in a hurry, " Thank you, thank you, much obliged^ 
I see quite now, thank you," and turned away, and presently 
went up to one of the attendants who stood by, and asked 
him the very questions he had put to me. The man stared 
at him for a moment, and then, all of a sudden, became 
tremendously obsequious, saying, " Oh, yes, my lord, cer- 
tainly, my lord, sorry to put your lordship to so much trouble, 
but we are obliged to be particular ; yes, my lord, you must 
sign the ticket if you please, it is a mere form, of course, in 
your case, my lord, but we find it necessary with the general 
public." I heard all this as I happened to be looking for 
another book under a letter close by where they were, 
and so could not help hearing what was said; and 
naturally enough, in consequence of what I did hear, I 
turned to have another look at the gentleman, who, by 
the way, seemed excessively annoyed at the pertinacity 
with which the assistant would thrust his services upon 
him, and immediately knew from his likeness to his photo- 
graph that he was that celebrated Colonial bishop, who has 



ON BISHOPS 171 

been committing some horrible crime, delivering a plain 
opinion upon some subject, or thinking for himself, as I have 
heard, things which all orthodox bishops are so careful to 
avoid. I felt quite a creeping sensation come over me when 
I reflected that I had actually spoken to a man, who had 
incurred universal censure, and whom papa calls heretic, 
sceptic, and other hard names, among the rest something 
arian, I know, latitudinarian perhaps. I took a dislike to 
him, as I said, the moment he rudely put a stop to my re- 
marks upon the difficulty of understanding the catalogue and 
tickets, by a kind of natural instinct I now feel convinced, 
and this dislike was increased by what I afterwards noticed, 
for I took care to keep my eye upon him. To begin with, 
no one would have known by his dress that he had been a 
bishop at all, for he actually wore the common chimney-pot 
hat of every-day life, and so far as I remember, had neither 
gaiters on his legs, nor a silk apron round his waist, and as 
soon as he began to be interested in his subject (something 
heretical of course) he behaved in a most unepiscopal and 
unorthodox manner, turned his chair half round, exhibiting 
nothing but his back to me (for when I discovered who he 
was I changed my original seat for one nearer his), ran his 
fingers through his hair till it stood up on end like a bearskin 
cap, and as a finishing stroke of ill-breeding, actually took off 
his neck-cloth and threw it into his hat. After that I left, 
indeed I did not think it proper to stay, for I thought he 
might perhaps proceed to take off his coat next. I returned 
to our lodgings in a very low, nervous state, feeling con- 
taminated with having breathed the same atmosphere with 
such a person ; indeed at one time I feared my principles 



172 ON BISHOPS 

were becoming undermined, but, by a great piece of good 
luck, we had an order for a private box at the Italian Opera 
sent us that very evening, and there, under the influence of 
the delightful music, and the lovely voice of Adelina Patti, I 
quite recovered my spirits, and when I retired to rest slept a 
refreshing sleep, and woke next morning in as orthodox a 
frame of mind as if I had just subscribed the Thirty-nine 
Articles. 

Most of the important facts that I have collected in the 
course of my episcopal investigations, I have given in this 
essay, but some I have omitted for want of space. Since, 
however, I still continue my researches, I hope to gather 
many more as interesting and as important as those I have 
already obtained, the whole of which I may be induced 
perhaps, at some future time, to embody in a modest volume, 
with the simple and unpretending title of." Our Bishops." 






ON THE 

FINER FEELINGS OF OUR NATURE 

n^HE popular idea of a sentimental girl, I take to be that 
■*■ of a lackadaisical young person of the Lydia Languish 
type, with no clearly defined character, considered by some 
to be deficient in intellect, but perfectly harmless, who is fond 
of lolling on a sofa, reading second-rate novels, wherein the 
rich heroine, after suffering the usual amount of ill-treatment 
at the hands of obdurate parents or guardians, finally marries 
the hero, an exalted being endowed by nature with every 
manly grace, and all the cardinal virtues, and wanting in 
nothing but a certain amount of dross, vulgarly known as the 
circulating medium ; or, as a change from novels, devours 
poetry, especially the poetry of Byron and Moore, until, at 
length, she surrounds herself with an atmosphere of unreality, 
and either pines away under the influence of an absorbing 
passion for an ideal youth, the creation of her own heated 
imagination ; or else invests some exceedingly prosaic indi- 
vidual with fictitious charms, becomes deeply enamoured of 
him, persuades him to run away with her (of course against 
her parents' wishes), discovers after a few weeks of wedded 
life that she is united to a brute, and either drags along a 
miserable and hysterical existence for the rest of her life, or 



174 ON THE FINER FEELINGS 

droops and dies early, a victim to misguided affection, and a 
warning to all girls who loll on sofas, read novels and poetry, 
and refuse to let their parents choose their husbands for 
them. 

Girls of this stamp existed some thirty or forty years ago, 
but they exist no longer. The age in which they lived, 
influenced by the poetry of Byron, Shelley, Keats, and Moore, 
favoured a kind of namby-pamby sentimentalism, and girls, 
like novelists, are bound to fall in with the popular taste. 

Poets, when not so exceedingly clever that no one is able 
to understand them, can often direct the popular taste. 
Novelists, to be successful, must find out wherein that taste 
lies, and frame their works in accordance with it. 

The writings of the poets I have already named influenced 
their readers, especially their young readers, to an enormous 
extent ; and in those days the heroes and heroines of novelists 
were deep-souled beings, moody and melancholy, with raven 
locks, dark eyes, and pensive countenances cast in classic 
moulds. Riches they seldom had, but when they did possess 
them it was in the form of ancestral wealth, not the ill-gotten 
gain derived from any such sordid source as trade. 

In the present day, the influence of poets is very small 
indeed. Men are too practical to listen to poetry. Business, 
position, and fashion, are the principal motive powers ; con- 
sequently we find our novel writers furnishing us with 
works suited to the tastes of the age. They know that the 
high-born youth, gazing with large melancholy eyes at an 
empty purse, from which he has just abstracted his last 
sovereign to supply the necessities of a friend as well-born, 
but as needy as himself, will have no chance against the 



OF OUR NATURE 175 

bustling man of business, whose object in life is to make 
a rapid fortune, and who never gives away a farthing until 
he can well afford it ; notwithstanding that the former pos- 
sesses, in addition to his melancholy eyes, a marble brow, 
an expressive mouth, a delicately chiselled nose, a noble 
mien and a commanding aspect, while the latter squints out 
of small eyes of no particular colour, wears his red hair 
cropped short all over his emphatically hard head, and blows 
his snub nose with a cotton pocket-handkerchief, as, sup- 
ported upon a pair of bandy legs, he walks with unfailing 
regularity into his office at nine o'clock every morning. So 
they choose the latter for a hero instead of the former, and 
reward him for having attained great mercantile prosperity 
with the hand of a beauteous damsel, with violet eyes and 
golden tresses (neither of which were in fashion thirty or 
forty years ago, if we may judge from the novels of the 
period), who, of course, despises him, and in the end pro- 
bably murders him. 

For the same reason that novel-writers adapt their works 
to the style and fashion of the age in which they live, do 
young ladies of one generation assume manners, habits, and 
customs differing from those of preceding generations : 
neither would sell unless they did so. Sentimental girls, 
that is, girls sentimental in the silly way I have described 
at the commencement of this letter, would never get off at all 
in the present day. Hysterics, once so common, are gone 
quite out of fashion, and why ? because practical men look 
upon hysterical young women either as humbugs or nuisances. 
A flood of tears, that once infallible weapon in the eyes of 
a skilful woman, is almost obsolete now, and a girl who were 



176 ON THE FINER FEELINGS 

to confess that she enjoyed a " good cry," would be looked 
upon as a lunatic ; and naturally enough, for where would 
be the use of making her eyes red about nothing at all 1 
Feminine softness has given place to masculine assurance, 
and that engaging appearance of helplessness which used 
to render the sex so charmingly attractive, to an assumption 
of independence that reminds one almost of the days of 
bloomerism. And why ? Because business men, men of the 
world, practical men, will not be bothered. with women who 
always require to be looked after and have every thing done 
for them, and are unable to take their own railway tickets, 
see their luggage labelled, or comprehend the mysteries of 
" booking through." 

Men's ideas too on the subject of beauty have undergone 
a complete change, necessitating as a matter of course an 
entirely new mode of getting oneself made up in a form 
likely to attract bidders. 

Pensive loveliness won't go down, as people say, at all. 
Piquant pertness will. The delicate, pale-faced, invalidish 
girl who " lives upon air," has long since been supplanted 
by the robust and crumby beauty, who confesses to a weak- 
ness for underdone beefsteaks. The nervous girl, who 
screams at the sight of a spider, and jumps upon a chair (to 
show her ankles) if a mouse should chance to scamper across 
the room, would do well to find out some other mode of 
displaying a pair of pretty feet more compatible with per- 
sonal bravery. Not that I would wish you to understand 
that girls should never counterfeit fear. On the contrary, 
nervousness, if well timed, can often be made very effective, 
For instance, supposing a girl should be walking with some 



OF UR NA TURE 1 77 

desirable parti, who, to use a slang phrase, won't come up to 
the scratch, that is, hangs back, and will not make known his 
intentions ; and supposing moreover that they should meet 
some poor harmless cow, driven perhaps to be milked along 
a country lane, what should she do in order to derive the 
greatest advantage from the situation ? why, of course, 
scream, and declare it to be a bull ; (for it is always allow- 
able to be frightened at a bull — besides, how should she 
know it may not really be one ? isn't it a great big animal 
with horns and hoofs ?) And if, as will probably be the 
case, her screams and her assumption of fear should alarm 
the poor creature, and cause it to stop and stare, she should, 
without the slightest hesitation, express in accents of terror 
her firm belief that it is not only a bull but a mad bull. 
Whereupon the eligible parti, anxious to allay her fears, and 
eager to display his courage (all men like to show off and 
appear brave at a cheap rate before women), advances with 
dauntless steps, brandishing his walking-stick, and shouting 
in a loud voice " hi, hi," to the great dismay of the infuriated 
animal, who forthwith turns tail and runs away, much to the 
disgust of the very small boy who has to go after it and drive 
it back again. So soon as this valorous deed has been 
accomplished, and the doughty champion has returned, she 
should, if she has her wits about her, turn pale, put her hand 
to her heart (left hand, left side, mind), and murmuring in 
faltering tones "preserver," fall fainting upon his manly 
bosom. Of course she should take care to recover very 
soon, because it is so awkward for a man to have to support 
a woman's deadweight for any length of time, since he 
cannot very well lay his lovely burden upon a dirty road, or 

N 



178 ON THE FINER FEELINGS 






even if he should be able to place her upon a nice bit of tur^ 
it is a great bore to have to run to some cottage, perhaps a 
quarter of a mile off, for a glass of water, with the risk of 
being obliged after all, for want of a better receptacle, to spoil 
a new hat with ladling some out of a not over-clean ditch. 
So that a girl under such circumstances ought by all means 
to "come to" as quickly as she decently can, and even be 
strong enough, after a little rest, to walk home, leaning upon 
the arm of the eligible parti. Now is the time for her to 
improve the occasion, by wondering how she could be so 
foolish as to faint (her heart, she will bid him observe, is 
palpitating at that very moment), and how he could be so 
brave as to attack a mad bull, for that it was mad she is 
morally certain, from the look of its horns. Here she may 
tenderly insinuate that she could never be frightened again if 
he were with her, and so forth. 

Safely arrived at home she should, after partaking of 
a glass of sherry, recount the whole adventure, magnifying 
the proportions and the ferocity of the cow, and extolling to 
the echo the courage displayed by the eligible young man. 
Mamma and sisters join in the chorus, until at length the 
poor fellow swallows the flattery, and begins to think himself 
really a hero, for 

"Man flattering man not always can prevail, 
But woman flattering man can never fail." 

After which, if he is not caught by so well-baited a hook, the 
angler is not to blame. 

Nervousness therefore, under certain circumstances, may 
be permitted, but, as a rule, in the present day the courageous 



Ob OUR NATURE 179 

girl has the ' pull/ as it is called, over the timid girl. It is 
sometimes judicious indeed to display an affectation of timidity, 
in order to flatter some one, upon whom you wish to make 
an impression, by bringing out his valour and heroism into 
more prominent relief. For instance, in the mad bull scene 
described above, it would have been perhaps more effective, 
if the girl, as soon as the animal had appeared, had grasped 
her companion's arm in an agony of terror, and exclaimed, 
" Oh, dear Mr. Hercules, you will protect me, will you not?" 
an appeal which could not have failed to make an impression 
on the most flinty of hearts, especially when accompanied by 
the affectionate word - dear ' as applied to the desired object, 
which he might be allowed to suppose had slipped out by 
accident in the excitement of the moment. As a matter 
of fact, the girl would of course purposely employ the term, 
well knowing that even if he were to suspect the truth, the 
circumstances of the case would always be available to cloak 
any apparent breach of propriety. 

But to resume the thread of my discourse. The change 
in the taste of the age as to the kind of beauty most attractive 
to the senses, is not merely confined to one part of creation, 
but extends pretty generally over the whole. Babbling brooks 
and streams that peacefully purl or gracefully meander 
through verdant meadows, have been overwhelmed by the 
impetuous torrents that rushing rivers roll over rugged rocks. 
Wild mountainous scenery, broad plains and wide expanses 
of open country, have quite cast into the shade less pre- 
tentious home views, the sequestered vales, the secluded 
spots, the nooks and corners of old England, in which 
painters used formerly to delight, as some behind the age 

N 2 



180 ON THE FINER FEELINGS 

do still. Thatched cottages covered with roses and honey- 
suckle, romantically reposing beneath umbrageous elms, and 
picturesque homesteads, also thatched, and tumbling to pieces 
for want of repair, are rapidly disappearing from the face of 
the land. 

The cottages are replaced either by plain staring red 
boxes with four windows and a door, and a parsimonious 
roof of blue slate ; or, where the builder aims at a little 
effect, by odd-shaped gothic structures of variegated bricks, 
looking like coloured sections of geological strata, and more 
fitted for Malvern or Tunbridge Wells than an English parish 
in an agricultural district ; the umbrageous elms are cut down 
and sold at so much per foot to " open the view ;" the tumble- 
down homesteads come to a violent end, and in their stead 
rise up farm-buildings with all the latest improvements, in- 
cluding a horrible matter-of-fact steam-engine, that threshes, 
and winnows, and crushes, and pulps, and does ever so many 
other things that no one used to hear of formerly. Even the 
" bold peasantry, their country's pride," are altered beings. 
Papa says he can recollect when they were a happy and 
contented race, satisfied with their wages and respectful to 
their betters : but now they seem to fancy that they have 
no betters, notwithstanding the catechism ; and even I, within 
the last two or three years, can see a considerable change 
in the behaviour of poor people. The men don't touch their 
hats to one with a pleasant " good morning, miss," nor the 
women curtsey when they meet one, with nearly so much 
regularity as formerly ; nor are they half so thankful for 
old clothes and things, not to mention that they are always 
wanting higher wages I am sure I can remember the 



OF OUR NA TURE 181 

time when the working men and boys used to be most grate- 
ful for a pair of papa's old boots, or trousers, or an old coat 
of George's, whereas now, they would scarcely say i thank 
you ' for them. I will just give you an instance in point, to 
show you how little the lower orders care for the trouble 
their superiors take on their behalf. Of course you know, 
from our position in the parish, we are expected to be 
charitable, especially as papa farms the glebe, so we give 
away a good many things, skim-milk and so forth, and 
all the year round, but particularly in the winter, we make 
what we call poor people's soup. It is done with odds and 
ends, bones, crusts of bread, and cold vegetables, and is really 
veiy palatable stuff — not what one would put on one's own 
table, of course, but good enough for poor people who have 
no chance of making any for themselves, and we always tell 
our cook to be particular and not let the bones and scraps 
become stale, and as she is a very careful person, they rarely 
do, except in hot weather, when she puts a little more pepper 
and salt into the soup, which makes it all right. Well, you 
know, the people come for this as often as they like, and 
one woman, a widow, (Mary Smith is her name, for I think 
it is right she should be publicly exposed,) used to bring 
a quart jug regularly every other day, and we were quite 
pleased to find she appreciated our kindness, especially as 
she had a large family of small children, and we often used 
to ask her how they liked it, and she always replied, " Oh, un- 
common, miss, it do do 'em a world o' good, it do, and the 
Lord Almighty bless you miss, and all the family, for being 
so kind as to let us poor folks have a drop now and again,'? 
and then she would curtsey so respectfully. Well, one day 



182 ON THE FINER FEELINGS 

we heard, quite casually, from a neighbour who was jealous 
she should have so much, that this very Maiy Smith had 
often told her, that the parson's soup brought her little 
pig on nicely. She had thrown it all into the wash-tub ! 
only think of that, now ! Papa was dreadfully annoyed 
when he heard of it, and next Sunday preached a beautiful 
sermon about Dives and Lazarus, to show that the poor in 
those days were contented with mere crumbs, without ever 
asking for soup. 

For my own part, I must say, although I know how 
wicked it is to go contrary to the tastes of the age, that 
I cannot but deplore the hard-hearted materialism of the 
present day. I am no sentimentalist in the popular accepta- 
tion of the term. Indeed, as I have already said, sentimental 
girls, as a class, are extinct, and single specimens are on a par, 
as regards rarity, with the apteryx and the great auk. That 
the old type still retains its hold on the popular mind, is 
no proof of the continued vitality of the original, but rather 
testifies to the truth of the fact, that sentimentality does not 
even exist in a modified form ; for if it did, our impressions 
would assuredly be derived from that, and not as now, from 
a form, or as I have styled it, the original, which we know 
to have existed in a past generation, but which common 
sense, experience, and analogy all tell us could never be 
made to accord with the taste of the day, without undergoing 
considerable modifications. We may then take it for granted 
that no girls in society ever loll upon sofas, reading novels 
and poetry, exciting their imagination, disobeying their 
parents, and eloping with poor men. With the exception 
of the last, which, of course, no girl with any self-respect 



OF OUR NATURE 183 

ever could bring herself to perform, all these actions are, I 
admit, done separately every day by many girls ; but, as they 
neither necessarily coexist, nor spring successively from 
one another, they are no longer the outward marks of a 
sentimental disposition (supposing it were possible for a girl 
to evince such a disposition in these times). 

I, myself, am excessively fond of reading novels, not so 
much for the sake of making myself acquainted with the 
writings of a clever author, as that I may say I have read 
them when any one asks me at a dinner-party, for instance, 
whether I have done so. Indeed, all girls who go out much 
into society, should be up in the latest novels, as it is the 
regular thing for a gentleman, when his supply of small-talk 
begins to fail, to ask one whether one has read such and such 
a new book, of which he knows probably only the title, on 
purpose that he may have time to think of some fresh topics 
while one is speaking. 

We have a box from Mudie's about once every three 
months, and should have it oftener were it not for papa, 
who will persist in sending for some horrid theological works, 
over which he says he cannot be hurried ; and really he does 
put one quite out of patience, spelling the books over and 
beginning again every night a page behind the place at 
which he last left off, so as to be certain not to miss any 
thing, whereas we girls have generally finished all the books 
worth reading in a month or six weeks at the latest. I never 
become so deeply interested in a novel as to be unable ta 
tear myself away from it, for I have read so many that I can 
generally guess pretty well how any one will end ; but if 
I should happen to be puzzled, I turn to the last volume and 



1 84 ON THE FINER FEELINGS 

look at the denouement^ and if I perceive that it is likely to 
terminate in a melancholy manner, I either stop reading it 
or skip over the disagreeable parts ; for my feelings are so 
naturally sensitive that very little harrows them, and if I were . 
once to yield and allow myself to be carried away by them, 
I should be fit for nothing for days, and dreadfully low- 
spirited, perhaps at a time when it might be most important 
for me to make the most of myself by putting on an appear- 
ance of animation, — for, as I mentioned in " CROQUET," I 
generally look my best when I am animated. 

This natural sensitiveness, which I cannot overcome, al- 
though I am aware how much it is against my future pro- 
spects in life, is that which causes me to deplore the material- 
ism of the day. Nature made me a soft impressionable 
creature, and why, I ask, is art to destroy all those finer 
feelings, the possession of which, in former days when the 
world was young and innocent, our sex was not ashamed to 
avow ? I will go still further. I will confess that I long to 
be relieved from the artificial trammels which our present, 
social system casts around us. I pant after the simplicity of 
the golden age. How happy should I be were it but possible 
to revive Arcadia ! What a delightful age that must have 
been when the world was peopled with none but shepherds 
and shepherdesses, when instead of settlements and all the 
horrid money-matters which stand so much in one's way, a 
girl was perfectly satisfied if her swain possessed 3. lew sheep, 
or a cow or two, and could play some simple tunes on an 
oaten reed; when Damon and Corydon sat all day long 
under wide-spreading beech-trees, piping to Phyllis, and 
Chloris, and Chloe, as they dancec to the melodious strains 






! 



OF UR NA TURE 1 85 

on green pastures, or laid their weary limbs to rest on mossy 
banks, the while they listened to a friendly contest of skill, 
also on the pipes, between two neighbouring shepherd-lads, 
so equally matched that an impartial judge invariably awarded 
a prize to each, some simple thing, a kid perhaps to one, and 
a curiously carved wooden cup to the other. Love was not 
then an " empty sound," 

1 ' On earth unseen, or only found 
To warm the turtle's nest," 

but lads and lasses, with engaging artlessness, shot inquiring 
glances out of sympathetic eyes, confessed mutual flames, 
and plighted their troth without any of the unnecessary cir- 
cumlocution which in these days attends a declaration of 
affection. I know that I am trenching on dangerous ground, 
and that in society it is not considered the thing for young 
people to fall in love of their own accord, until the desirability 
of the match has been decided by their parents ; and if I had 
not been carried away by the entrancing nature of the subject, 
I cannot conceive how I, as a well-bred girl, could ever have 
brought myself to write in such a wild way. I feel as if I 
had committed some great crime already, and until I have 
confessed to dear Mr. Alban I am certain I shall suffer all 
the pangs of a guilty conscience. As however he will come 
to shrive me punctually at 11 A.M. to-morrow morning, I 
may as well take the opportunity of sinning a little more, and 
give you my ideas with regard to the possibility of restoring 
a portion of that simplicity in manners which prevailed in 
primitive times. I am not so sanguine as to suppose that 



1 86 ON THE FINER FEELINGS 

the pastoral age, the age of shepherds, and shepherdesses, 
flocks and herds, and Pandean pipes, could ever be revived 
in any thing like its original form in these days of business 
and railways, but still I think we might effect much by simply 
becoming more rustic, more sylvan ; what harm, for instance, 
could possibly ensue, were I to take the initiative, and dress 
a la shepherdess, in a blue satin body open in front, with 
short sleeves, the skirt looped up all round, or pinned back 
behind over a red petticoat beautifully embroidered, with 
blue satin shoes, ornamented with bows of ribbon, on my 
feet, and a small straw hat, trimmed with flowers, coquettishly 
stuck on one side of my head ; a crook in one hand, and a 
posy (to use a rustic word) in the other ? None whatever, 
for the costume would certainly become me, and can any 
thing be said more in its favour than that ? 

I do not however propose to take even so moderate a step 
as this. All I ask for is permission to become more country- 
fied. I should like to be a milkmaid in a green gown, and 
dance round a maypole, or at all events to have a nice little 
cosy cottage of my own, with a nice little farm where I could 
keep sheep, and cows, Alderneys of course, and have a dairy, 
and make butter. I would have every thing so beautifully 
neat and clean, all glass milk-pans, which I should let 
nobody touch but myself, for fear they should get broken. 
I am even now not so inexperienced in such matters as you 
might suppose, for we keep cows in the glebe, and last 
summer I determined I would make some butter all myself ; 
so I went into the dairy, got some cream, tucked up my 
sleeves and pinned my skirts back, and began to churn in 
one of those upright earthenware churns where you work 



OF OUR NATURE 187 

a sort of broom-handle up and down. Well, I got on 
beautifully at first, but after I had been churning an hour, my 
arms ached to that degree I could hardly lift them up ; 
however, I would persevere, because I knew our dairymaid, 
who very much disliked my interfering in her department, 
would exult so over me if I gave it up ; but notwithstanding 
that I continued to beat the cream with regular strokes, as 
I had been told to do, the butter would not come. So then 
one of the servants said the cream was too hot, so we poured 
a quantity of cold water into the churn, but without pro- 
ducing the desired effect ; upon which some one else sug- 
gested that it might be too cold, whereupon we poured a lot 
of hot water in, and I continued churning and churning 
until I was fit to drop, and at last had to give it up. Then 
we set the groom to churn, and he gave it up ; and then the 
boy who helps in the garden, and he gave it up ; and 
then the fame of my exploit having reached papa's ears, he 
came, and he gave it up ; and then we left it for every body 
to churn who liked, and nobody liked, and I became quite 
low-spirited about it. At last, just before we were going to 
bed (I had commenced operations before breakfast), I said I 
would go and have another turn at it, and so I did, ana 
wonderful to relate the butter came, and I made it up by 
candlelight, and next morning it was brought in for break- 
fast, and any butter so bad I never tasted. It was im- 
possible to eat it, so we gave it away to the poor people, and 
I got quite a name all over the parish, insomuch that when- 
ever a farmer's wife made any bad butter she called it Miss 
Angelina's butter. Very flattering, was it not ? 

Of course I should know better now, and I believe I could 



1 88 ON THE FINER FEELINGS 

manage quite a large dairy. Then as regards sheep, I think 
I could with a little assistance rear them ; for when we were 
all children, papa used to give us every year, when the lambs 
came, the first three lots of twins, that was two lambs apiece. 
They continued to be called ours till they grew into sheep, 
when we generally forgot all about them ; and I should not 
wonder if the poor dear innocent things were killed, and we 
ate them as mutton. However, it has often struck me since, 
how foolish we were not to keep them, because of course, on 
the very moderate assumption that each would have only one 
lainb, the next year we should have had four apiece, and the 
next eight, and the next sixteen, and so on, like the nails in 
the horse's shoes in the Arithmetic book, so that in a very 
few years' time we should have had an enormous flock of 
sheep, which we could have sold and made a great deal of 
money by. I wonder farmers don't think of this, and instead 
of complaining and grumbling, as they always do, make their 
fortunes at once. 

In happier times, when George and I were on more friendly 
terms than we are now (he has not been near us for weeks, 
and I detest him so you can't think), I once threw out a 
feeler about love in a cottage, or small farm-house, and told 
him my ideas upon farming, and keeping cows, and sweet 
little lambs ; but he destroyed all the romance of the thing, 
by saying that, as I proposed to make so much butter, he 
thought it would be more profitable to keep pigs than sheep, 
as the buttermilk would come in so useful for them. I never 
expected he would have taken such a commonplace view of 
the subject. It quite shocked me at the time to find he had 
so little appreciation of the beautiful. 






OF UR NA TURE 189 

Alas, how unsympathetic the world is, and how impossible 
is it for a girl, who has often been told by competent judges 
that she is " all soul," to satisfy, amid the artificial surround- 
ings of society, the cravings of a simple, a refined, an ethereal 
nature ! 



ON 
A NEW MODE OF DOING PENANCE 

A GRAND idea frequently enters one's head without 
^ ■*" giving one the slightest intimation of its approach. 
An instance of this has just occurred in my own person. 
For some time Mr. Alban and I have been racking our 
brains to discover a new kind of penance. We have become 
dissatisfied, and not unnaturally so, with the commonplace 
old-fashioned systems of mortifying the flesh, that have been 
in vogue from time immemorial in civilized society. Fasting 
makes one pale, takes away one's good looks, and, if carried 
to excess, reduces a finely-proportioned figure to the lank 
dimensions of a skeleton. Evidently this must be discarded. 
Praying a certain number of prayers every day afflicts the 
spirit more than the body, and it is the body in connexion 
with the spirit that we wish to subdue by undergoing our- 
selves, or imposing upon others, something vexatious. We 
thought of many plans, but none seemed exactly suitable. I 
will enumerate a few of them. Poor dear papa spoke quite 
sharply to me one day, because he saw me reading "The 
Church and the World," a beautiful book Mr. Alban had 
lent me ; so I at once perceived how much good a little 
penance would do him, and proceeded to take all the buttons 



ON A NEW MODE OF DOING PENANCE 191 

off the wristbands of his shirts, which device was so far 
successful, that it put him into a terrible passion for a clergy- 
man (you can't think how shocked I was;, but was attended 
with this disadvantage, viz., that although he did not know 
who had taken the buttons off, he made me sew them all on 
again; so that I was obliged to exercise a little more forethought 
the next time I invented a penance, and I think it will be 
admitted that I devised for the particular case a most in- 
genious form of torture. 

Our parlour-maid, Mary, who has been with us for some 
years, annoyed me excessively by making a great profession 
of what she termed religious principles, which, after all, as 
I very soon ascertained, amounted to neither more nor less 
than rank Dissent : so as mamma seemed disinclined to part 
with her — for she certainly was useful as a servant, if heretical 
— I said to her one day, " Oh, Mary, here are a pair of boots 
you may have, — they are very good and quite new, but they 
are not exactly the kind I ordered. I think they will do for 
you nicely." She thanked me very much and took them. 
Now I must tell you that these boots were dreadfully tight, 
and pinched me horribly, so I knew if she wore them 
she would endure terrible agony, and soon have a plentiful 
supply of corns, supposing she had none already. I expect 
she found this out, for I noticed she never had them on : 
so I said I was sorry she did not appreciate my kindness, 
that the boots were by a first-rate maker, and I should 
wish her to wear them even' day, as boots and shoes were 
certain to be spoiled if they were laid by. So. of course, 
after these remarks, she felt obliged to wear them, and as a 
consequence, with the boots endured the penance. I could 



i 9 2 ON A NEW MODE 

tell by the expression of her face when she came into the 
room that she was suffering hourly martyrdom, and it made 
me quite cheerful to think how well my plan was working. 
In a short time she began to limp perceptibly, and as her 
lameness lasted after the boots were worn out, I have strong 
hopes that it may become confirmed. This was a grand 
step, and I was prepared for the congratulations Mr. Alban 
offered me upon the success of my scheme. He said what a 
capital thing it would be if one could force all Dissenters to 
wear tight boots; and at one time I fancy he was a little 
sanguine upon the point, and thought he saw his way to the 
complete subversal of heresy throughout the country by 
suborning the shoemakers, although, as he merrily remarked, 
it would be scarcely possible to make such people walk more 
crookedly than they do now. 

We have not introduced any fresh modes of penance 
among the school-children, it is true, but still we have effected 
a few improvements upon the ordinary punishments of minor 
offenders. The dunce's cap, which was originally made of 
white paper, I have illuminated with red and yellow flames, 
in imitation of the caps which the officers of the holy In- 
quisition were accustomed to place upon the heads of heretics 
at an auto-da-fe, and we tell the children, whenever we have 
occasion to use it, that by rights they ought to be burnt alive, 
whereby the most refractory are soon reduced to submission. 
We think it well, too, to instil correct principles into the 
mind at as early an age as possible : so in the infant school, 
instead of putting a child in the corner when naughty, we put 
it in purgatory, as we style a kind of coal cupboard under the 
staircase, as dark as pitch ; and as we take care to represent 



OF DOING PENANCE i 9? 

" purgatory" as a most horrible place, full of hideous hob- 
goblins and demons, we frighten the little things dreadfully, 
and several of them begin already to show signs of incipient 
idiocy. 

Thus far you will have observed I have been relating 
cases of penance imposed upon other people, but you must 
not therefore suppose that we underwent no mortifications 
ourselves. To begin with, there were the early morning 
services at 7 a.m. in the winter. Think of that. I feel con- 
vinced I shall be rewarded in some way for the subjugation 
of the flesh I endured in attending them. And I am sure 
one deserves something for getting out of bed on a frosty 
morning by candlelight (a thing I detest), washing in cold 
water, as there was no hot to be had at that time of day, 
huddling on one's clothes, and then saying one's prayers in 
a voice trembling with a mixture of spiritual fervour and 
corporeal cold in a damp church, instead of praying in one's 
closet with the door shut. Dear Mr. Alban was very con- 
siderate, I must say, for at his own expense he laid down 
a quantity of cocoa-nut matting for us to stand upon ; but 
still with all my zeal I used to shiver through the whole of 
the service. However, after all, I do not know whether one 
should look upon early morning services in the light of 
a penance, for there is a kind of complacent satisfaction in 
feeling that one is undergoing a self-imposed task against 
one's inclination, that has its charms, at all events for the 
feminine mind, not to mention that this work — I won't 
say of supererogation — of piety makes one feel so good 
for the rest of the day. Indeed, I was quite out of 
temper one morning when I had to get up early and make 

o 



i 9 4 ON A NEW MODE 

breakfast for papa, who was going off by the mail train to 
London, and was thereby hindered from attending morning 
service. I did not recover my spirits for nearly a week. 
This mention of papa reminds me to say that he was most . 
unreasonably opposed to my rising early for service, used to 
laugh at my " sudden freaks/' and asked me whether I did 
not think old Betty the washerwoman, who was up by three 
in the morning in summer and five in winter, and Dick 
Chawbacon, who also rose at some unconscionable hour all 
the year round, and who never took the least merit to them- 
selves on that account, but simply performed the duties of 
the state of life to which they had been called, to the best of 
their ability, were not as likely to go to heaven as I, who 
considered I was performing a wonderful act of self-denial by 
turning out of bed an hour before my usual time, and that too 
with the expectation of receiving some future reward. I 
answered with as much composure as I could assume, for I 
felt very angry, that I was not so well acquainted as he 
seemed to be with washerwomen and ploughboys, that I 
thought he had better inquire whether they said any prayers 
at all before he accused me in that dreadful way, only because 
I wanted to try and be a little extra good ; and, I added as I 
left the room, that there was far too much self-righteousness 
in the world to please me. He never alluded to the subject 
again. 

It is not necessary for me here to enter into any lengthy 
discussion upon the question whether morning services at 
7 a.m. in the winter are to be looked upon in the light of 
a penance or not. I have made mention of them for this 
reason, that they were the nearest approach to- corporeal 



OF DOING PENANCE 195 

subjugation I underwent myself ; for although I was able to 
impose penances upon other people, I had a difficulty in 
hitting upon a mode of humiliation that suited my own case. 
And it will have been observed that there was nothing 
particularly new in the devices I have enumerated. Shirt 
buttons have been recognized household plagues from 
the time, I should suppose, when shirts were first worn ; 
and tight shoes are nothing but a kind of modernized 
variation of the iron boots and thumbscrews of the middle 
ages ; while the penitential improvements we set on foot in 
the national school, amounted to nothing more than the 
associating of correct ideas with the infliction of old-esta- 
blished penalties upon unruly children. We taxed our inven- 
tion in vain to discover new penances, until quite suddenly, 
as I have said, a grand idea entered my head. This was, 
that one might undergo a most effectual mortification of the 
flesh by having one's photograph taken, and thus not only 
introduce a taking ecclesiastical novelty, but also provide 
needy clergymen with a means of increasing their income, 
not inconsistent with the serious nature of their profession; 
for although under the present system no clergyman could 
turn photographer to gain a livelihood without incurring 
social degradation, there could be no more impropriety, were 
my suggestion carried into effect, in a clergyman taking a 
fee for imposing a photographic penance, than for burying or 
marrying a person. 

That going to a photographer's to be 'done' is a real 
penance, I think all people who have experienced the painful 
ordeal will readily admit. There is in the first place the 
very thought of the thing. The certainty that one will never 

O 2 



ip<5 ON A NEW MODE 

* come out ' well, that one will look one's worst just at the 
very time when one would desire to look one's best. Thei? 
there is the worry and anxiety of mind upon the knotty point 
of dress. One must not wear blue, for instance, nor any thing, 
with a very firononce* pattern. The attitude one shall assume 
will be the next vexed question ; neglige, of course ; but then 
people's ideas differ as to what is neglige. For my own part, 
I incline to a table, an arm-chair, a bouquet, and one's head 
a little on one side for an interior ; and a vase, a Swiss land- 
scape (waterfall in the foreground, and Mont Blanc in the 
distance), a standing posture slightly pensive, and fingers 
carelessly placed between the leaves of a book, for the open 
air. But these are merely personal predilections, and tastes 
naturally vary with individuals. Preliminaries arranged as 
satisfactorily as they possibly can be in the perturbed state 
of one's mind, we will suppose the fatal day arrived. One is 
ushered up endless flights of stairs into a waiting-room, where 
one has to do one's hair, and see that one's nose isn't red, 
in the presence of a number of other victims, some of whom 
are awaiting their summons with that sort of forced com- 
posure which only brings their nervousness out into greater 
relief; a few, perhaps, express their trepidation in audible 
tones, and are comforted in equally audible tones by more 
experienced friends, who, on the strength of having been 
done ever so many times, assume a conscious superiority over 
their weaker companions, and assure them that " it's nothing, 
really nothing, after all, and over in a minute too," as if 
they were speaking of having a tooth drawn ; the remainder 
have been done. On the countenances of one or two, there 
is a joyful expression, they have " come out better than they 



OF DOING PENANCE 197 

expected " — these are the fortunate individuals : but on the 
countenances of the rest, there is an expression of settled 
melancholy ; they have seen their " negatives n — they knew 
how it would be from the first — " Oh yes, my dear, a perfect 
fright!" these are the many unfortunate individuals. At 
length, after one has tired oneself to death with looking at 
albums full of portraits of people whom no one knows 
any thing of, a young man stained with chemicals steps 
hurriedly into the room, " Miss Gushington." More flights 
of stairs, up one goes, trips I should say, and is shown into 
a room apparently all glass, with a general glare of light, so 
strong that it makes one's eyes water. Very polite man, — 
take a seat here, if you please ; one composes oneself in what 
one fancies will be a telling attitude. Won't do at all, much 
better thus ; and one is pulled about, and made to sit in 
a stiff, uncomfortable posture, which the polite gentleman 
insists, with a slight foreign accent, is exceedingly naturak 
Polite gentleman focusses one — do very nicely — alters the 
light by shifting a number of shutters on the roof of the glass 
house. Oh, yes, beautiful portrait to a certainty — will one sit 
still just for a moment, while one's head is stuck between 
a pair of iron prongs ? one sits still, because one can't help it, 
painfully conscious that one must look very like a wooden 
doll, and with an almost irresistible inclination to rub the tip 
of one's nose. " Now, steady, if you please, fix your eyes on 
this bit of paper" (pins a bit of white paper on a screen): one 
begins to squint directly. " Now again, steady, you may wink 
your eyes if you wish to do so " (this is said as if he were 
conferring an inestimable boon) : of course one has an im- 
mediate desire to wink furiously. The cover of the machine 



19S ON A NEW MODE 

cautiously removed, one, two, three .... ten, that will do ; 
photographer retires into dark closet, carrying portrait 
wrapped up under his arm, perfectly confident that it will be 
an excellent one. Quickly returns, yes, very fair ; one more 
in another posture, process repeated. Would one like to see 
the negative ? certainly ; negative produced, impression 
vague ; one thinks it not unlikely that one will turn out 
to be a negress, with white hair and a black face. Couldn't 
be a better photograph — oh, indeed. There ! if that isn't 
penance, what is, I should like to know ? 

Although this grand idea of mine was perfectly original, 
I am compelled to admit, when I reflect upon the subject, 
that it may have occurred to other people before it did to 
me. Indeed, from observations I have made since I con- 
ceived it, I am nearly certain tjhat a few persons have already 
actually applied photography to the purposes of self-morti- 
fication in the very way I myself have suggested. You re- 
member poor brother Ignatius ? Yes, of course you do. 
Well, before that poor gentleman re-assumed the common- 
place garb of every-day clerical life, and while yet he was 
clothed in all the simplicity of camers-hair and sandals, 
I used to wonder how he could find time, so fully occupied 
as he must have been in keeping those shockingly disobedient 
monks in order at Norwich, to have his photograph taken so 
frequently. One saw portraits of brother Ignatius in every 
variety of attitude, I may say in all conceivable postures 
(ecclesiastical and mediaeval of course) ; sometimes alone, 
pensive and melancholy, in a cell ; at others attended by 
companions, brothers of his order, or sweet little acolytes in 
nice little clean pinafores, surplices I mean, posed in correct 



OF DOING PENANCE i 99 

postures in some gorgeous edifice, but always looking sweetly, 
with his tonsured head brought forward into conspicuous re- 
lief, the one bright spot shining in the midst of funereal dark- 
ness. Now I have not the slightest doubt in my own mind, 
that each one of these portraits testifies to the performance of 
a separate act of penance, and that the brain of the dear 
monk must have been ever on the rack to invent new and 
picturesque attitudes. What an interesting and instructive 
study it would be to form a complete collection of Ignatian 
photographs, and by their means trace the gradual develop- 
ment of the beautiful, the sentimental, the sweet, and the 
telling in the monastic mind ! 

But the merit of having applied the art of the photographer 
to the soothing of the soul must not rest -with brother Ignatius 
alone. I have lately seen a carte-de-visite of a right reverend 
prelate, w T hich I am morally convinced could never have been 
taken but as an extreme mode of affording penitential relief 
to a burthened spirit. The dear bishop, decked in his robes, 
with the riband and badge of the order of the Garter round 
his neck, stands in the attitude of blessing a congregation. 
His left hand grasps a lovely pastoral staff taller than him- 
self, and his right is raised aloft, the middle and index 
fingers pointing upwards, the third and little fingers bent 
downwards to meet the thumb, which is turned inwards on 
the palm of the hand, a digital contortion of the most correct 
kind, but more difficult to execute than to describe. A 
pyscholcgical inquiry into the causes which led to the adop- 
tion of this imposing attitude, with a sketch of the mode in 
which the whole proceeding was conducted, would form a 
valuable contribution to ecclesiastical literature. I fear how- 



200 ON A NEW MODE 

ever that the bishop, with the modesty which characterizes 
all his actions, would shrink from laying bare the inmost 
feelings of his heart, even if it were to benefit his clerical 
brethren. Therefore, although I know what presumption it 
is on my part to make an attempt to evolve out of my inner 
consciousness, as it were, the causes and the mode, yet I am 
content to bear the blame such a course of procedure may 
entail upon me, for the sake of the good which cannot but 
accrue to society from a mental investigation of the kind, 
however insufficiently it may be performed, owing to paucity 
of data and lack of intellectual qualifications on the part of 
my own humble self. 

We will suppose that the bishop felt the necessity of under- 
going some severe penance (for bishops, alas, are mortal !) 
and had determined that it should take a photographic form. 
So far, so good ; the question would then arise, " how shall 
I be done ?" One can imagine the episcopal mind harassed 
from day to day, cogitating and revolving, and yet unable to 
arrive at a ' correct ; solution. Restless nights and weary days 
would succeed one another in a dreary sequence, until at 
length some one (a young lady perhaps, who knows ?) might 
-say to the disquieted ecclesiastic in a cheerful voice, " Oh, you 
dear bishop, I should so like to have your photograph, do be 
taken especially for me f whereupon the bishop would wince, 
for this would be touching him on a sore point ; but, recover- 
ing his composure, would gravely, as became a bishop, accede 
to her request, albeit with a mournful air, and then, as if glad 
of a suggestion from any one, even a young lady, catching at 
a straw in fact, he would add, " How would you wish to have 
me taken then ? J ' whereupon, if she were a girl of spirit, as we 



OF DOING PENANCE 201 

may presume she would be, she would reply with vivacity and 
tact, " Oh, full dress, of course, and mind you have your walk- 
ing stick with the crook to it, and that gold ornament round 
your neck." The bishop, shocked at her untimely levity, 
would gravely rebuke her, but lest he might inflict too severe 
a wound in her susceptible bosom, he would also yield to 
her on these points, not a little glad, too, to have thus easily 
settled the momentous question. Do not suppose, however, 
that his labours and troubles would end here. We must next 
picture him posturing in his robes before a cheval glass, ad- 
miring his get-up, and posing himself in various attitudes, 
uncertain as yet which would be the most penitentially 
effective. Suddenly, as by inspiration, he would call for 
his pastoral staff, and assume the position of a bishop bless- 
ing his flock. The majesty and easy grace of the posture 
would be so self-evident that he would at once determine to 
adopt it, and taking off his somewhat cumbrous robes, seek 
the retirement of his study to practise that peculiar dis- 
position of the fingers and thumb of the right hand which 
I have already described. This in itself would be a work 
requiring the exercise of some patience and perseverance. 
We all know how mutually dependent one's fingers are, and 
how difficult it is to bend one without bending all. Here 
then would be a fertile source for an evening's employment. 
The bishop locked in his study, and supposed by the mem- 
bers of his household to be engaged in penning some learned 
charge to the clergy of his diocese, would be occupied in the 
more athletic, and I may even add, more intellectual pursuit of 
reducing into submission his refractory digits. I know my- 
self how much time he would have to devote to the task, for 



202 ON A NEW MODE 

ever since I saw his photograph I have been practising with 
my own fingers, and I can do it beautifully now, and so can 
Mr. Alban, who learnt from me. It may be useful to him, 
for as he is well connected (first cousin to a baronet, I believe), 
it is possible he may be made a bishop some day ; but with 
me it is nothing more than an accomplishment (of which 
I am a little • proud, nevertheless), for I do not expect to see 
the rights of women fully acknowledged in my time. But to 
return to the bishop. That excellent prelate might now be 
considered prepared to undergo the frightful ordeal of being 
photographed, and he would have to consider whether he 
would go ready dressed, like a cold chicken at a picnic, to the 
photographer's studio, or have his things sent there for him, 
and put them on in a private room. If he adopted the first 
plan, he would, of course, ride in a close carriage, carrying the 
pastoral staff with him, the crook stuck out of window, as 
there would be no room for it inside, unless the staff took to 
pieces, like the one we gave to our dear friend the bishop of 
Dahomey. I may here mention, that as a prudent and 
thoughtful prelate, he would of course have taken care to 
have had the silver mountings of his staff brightened up with 
plate-powder for the occasion, and the wooden portions extra 
French-polished. These minor arrangements completed, be- 
hold the bishop ushered into the presence of the ' artist, 5 by 
whom he is treated with the respect and deference due to his 
rank. Would his exalted visitor take a seat while he, the 
skilful photographer, prepares a plate ? The bishop rests, for 
oppressed with the weight of his vestments, and slightly over- 
come with the exertion of mounting so many pairs of stairs, 
he is aweary. The artist returns. Any particular attitude ? 



OF DOING PENANCE 203 

The attitude of blessing — certainly ; quite the thing, will 
look very imposing, and become his lordship admirably. 
Adjustment of focus. Here a hitch occurs, the bishop's 
naturally bland visage refuses to assume the degree of 
gravity, not to say sternness, requisite on this impressive 
occasion. Would his lordship put on a look of greater 
solemnity, not to say severity? Dear me, that will never 
do ; too bland by half. What is to be done ? Happy thought 
on the part of photographer. If his lordship would excuse 
the liberty, — he, the photographer, in a moment of weakness, 
for which he now craves pardon, took the portrait of a wealthy 
but bigoted Dissenter. Would his lordship deign to look at 
it ? perhaps he might by gazing thereon be enabled to assume 
the desired severity of countenance. The good bishop con- 
trols his feelings, and by an effort of will fastens his eyes 
upon the heretical features. Instant and wonderful trans- 
formation of the episcopal lineaments, as much too severe now 
as they were previously too benign. We are to bless and 
not to excommunicate, an expression of grave solemnity and 
not of anger is what we (the bishop) should endeavour to as- 
sume — the happy medium is the thing — how can that be 
attained ? Bright thought again occurs to sharp-witted pho- 
tographer. He has a photograph of brother Ignatius — the 
bishop smiles. We shall yet succeed. Would his lordship 
condescend to look at the monk with one eye and squint at 
the Dissenter with the other ? Bishop will try. Admirable — 
the happy medium at last. Now head-rest adjusted — that 
will do ; could his lordship fancy himself on the steps of the 
altar ? His lordship will endeavour to do so, but the light- 
ness of the room takes away from the illusion, not to mention 



2o 4 ON A NEW MODE 

a landscape of chimney-pots seen through the glass. Thank 
you, that will do nicely. Staff held loosely in left hand, 
crook pointing outwards, to denote external authority. Very 
good— photographer will pay particular attention to the staff. 
Now, hand uplifted, fingers contorted, eyes fixed on the two 
photographs, the bane and the antidote — beautiful expression 
of countenance — piety, fervour, gravity, vast intellectual quali- 
fications admirably commingled. Now, steady — one, two, 
three . . . ten. That will do. Not necessary to detain his lord- 
ship any longer. Yes, his lordship may depend upon it, the 
staff will come out to perfection. And the badge ? and the 
badge. Mind the step, my lord. John, see his lordship out. 
I have thus feebly endeavoured to pourtray some of the 
varied scenes of the little pantomime in which the dear bishop 
would have to sustain the chief role, as in my imagination 
they might have been acted. And how touching is the re- 
flection, that so distinguished a member of the spiritual bench 
might have gone through some such irksome performance as 
this purely as a penance ! And yet that it must have been 
so is self-evident, for how is it possible to imagine any mem- 
ber of the clerical profession, let alone a bishop, deliberately 
dressing himself up in his gayest attire, hanging a bauble 
attached to a bit of blue riband round his neck (by way, it 
may be presumed, of pointing out the connexion between 
Church and State), furnishing himself with a huge gilded and 
jewelled crook, and thus decked out in all his finery, acting 
at performing one of the holiest functions of his office in 
a photographer's garret, except it were for the express pur- 
pose of thereby undergoing a most humiliating form of 
penance ? 



OF DOING PENANCE 205 

Not that I would have you suppose that / should see any 
impossibility in the matter at all. I indeed think that the 
dear bishop was photographed as a penance, but I am not, 
I am happy to say, one of those narrow-minded individuals 
who would object to the application of photography to legi- 
timate ecclesiastical purposes. Persons of weak or limited 
intellect might indeed shudder at the notion of having their 
photographs taken while they were praying in a church or 
blessing a congregation ; but we who go in for histrionic 
devotion, have much more enlarged, and consequently more 
enlightened views on such matters, and look with feelings 
akin to derision upon our more squeamish co-religionists, 
men so tied down by the .bonds of conventionality, that 
they dare not march with the times, or avail themselves of 
discoveries made by scientific investigators. What a pity it 
is that the force of habit and the mere accustomed as- 
sociation of certain ideas should so prejudice men, as to 
render them positively blind to their best interests ! 

What a vast field of inquiry is here opened to us ! Would 
that it came within the scope of our present discussion ! 
However, I am compelled not to enter upon it, as my re- 
marks must be strictly confined to the subject placed at the 
head of this essay. I think I have clearly shown that by 
means of photography it is possible to concert a most valuable 
and novel form of penance : one too which, although not 
publicly avowed by them, has already received the private 
sanction by personal practice of two well-known and highly 
respected members of society ; the one the self-styled brother 
Ignatius, the other a distinguished ornament of the bench of 
bishops. 



LONDON : 

GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, 

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